Environmental Science & Policy最新文献

{"title":"Reconciling wildlife governance in a changing climate: A systematic review of mule deer management in St’át’imc Territory","authors":"Nina Andrascik,&nbsp;Jennifer Grenz","doi":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104136","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104136","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In the wake of intensifying climate events—such as the increasing frequency and severity of wildfires—colonial legislation continues to hinder the advancement of ecological and food systems reconciliation. This paper presents a systematic review of mule deer (<em>Odocoileus hemionus</em>) management in St’át’imc Territory, a species vital to Indigenous food systems in British Columbia. The goal was to assess the extent to which provincial legislation responds to contemporary climate realities and upholds Indigenous rights. We conducted a deductive legislative review using the BC Laws database in combination with a systematic literature review following PRISMA protocols. Categorization of documents revealed five discrepancies between the legislation and evidence-based priorities in the literature: (1) the absence of climate-adaptive measures in ungulate winter range protections; (2) salvage logging practices that compromise post-wildfire ecological recovery and Indigenous stewardship; (3) hunting regulations that fail to account for Indigenous sustenance needs; (4) insufficient access management in fire-affected landscapes; and (5) the exclusion of Indigenous knowledge systems from legislative processes. Despite British Columbia’s adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) through the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA), existing statutes—such as the Wildlife Act and Forest and Range Practices Act—remain misaligned with its principles. Without substantive reform, the province’s commitments to reconciliation risk remaining symbolic. This review highlights the urgent need to restructure wildlife legislation to support co-governance, uphold Indigenous food sovereignty, and foster climate resilience in the era of mega-wildfires.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":313,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Science & Policy","volume":"171 ","pages":"Article 104136"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144489869","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Anticipating ecological transformation in the Coorong, Australia: Capacities and knowledge for upstream engagement","authors":"Carla Alexandra","doi":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104147","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104147","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Climate change and other anthropogenic stressors are leading to directional changes in ecosystems, making ecological transformations more likely. The need to anticipate and proactively plan for ecological transformation is increasingly recognised. Yet, how change is anticipated and who is involved in foresight processes can shape how ecological transformation is governed and managed. Research has proposed foresight processes to engage stakeholders about ecological transformation. However, empirical research is needed to provide insights into the opportunities and challenges of using foresight in contexts of ecological transformation. This research develops insights on <em>anticipatory capacities</em> and <em>futures knowledge</em> for decision-making about adapting to prospective ecological transformation, drawing on a case study from the Ramsar-listed Coorong region (<em>Yarluwar-Ruwe</em>) in South Australia. It builds on anticipatory governance literature and the Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) climate adaptation framework, to understand anticipatory capacities required for <em>upstream engagement</em> on prospective ecological transformation. Findings highlight key anticipatory capacities are a) accepting transformative change is inevitable, b) addressing emotional responses, c) navigating changing values, and d) navigating the politics of anticipation. Anticipatory governance of ecological transformation requires capacities to engage stakeholders on social, political, and emotional dimensions of change. This research highlights the paradoxical nature of futures knowledge, balancing credibility with subjectivity. It underscores the vital role of emotional dimensions in responding to ecological transformation. Upstream engagement that applies foresight to anticipate ecological transformation is needed to support people through anticipatory loss and grief, towards facilitating agency in a changed future. The findings offer insights into anticipatory governance in Australia and internationally.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":313,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Science & Policy","volume":"171 ","pages":"Article 104147"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144471950","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Science advice and policy influence: Views of practitioners in the Swedish Climate Policy Council","authors":"Linnéa Aarthun,&nbsp;Göran Sundqvist","doi":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104143","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104143","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Today, many nations have established climate councils to support the national implementation of the Paris Agreement. Previous research has shown that a successful council should be science-based and politically independent, but it should also be in close contact with the government it is reviewing and advising. This ambiguous position of being both politically-independent and politically-dependent forms the basis of this article. We present results from the first interview-based empirical study on how the Swedish Climate Policy Council balances this seemingly paradoxical situation of opposing ambitions. Our analysis utilizes approaches from the field of science and technology studies (STS) that can deepen our understanding of how science advice is (and should be) entangled with <em>both</em> science and politics. From this perspective, the supposed paradox could be dissolved. We find that the Swedish Council has become a point of reference in the national climate policy conversation. However, our findings also highlight the Council’s overall approach, which means avoiding both scientific and political details as an effort to not intervene in party politics. We conclude that advice from the Swedish Climate Policy Council is not sufficiently embedded in the political processes it serves, nor does the strong focus on autonomy and independence support these efforts. Hence, we argue that there is a need to re-think climate councils as political actors, both in practice and social science studies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":313,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Science & Policy","volume":"171 ","pages":"Article 104143"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144471422","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The reflexive process in sustainability science: A short critical review","authors":"Julien Vanhulst ,&nbsp;Patricio Padilla-Navarro ,&nbsp;Alejandro Espinosa-Rada ,&nbsp;Roberto Cantillan ,&nbsp;Roberto Velásquez ,&nbsp;Karla González Tapia","doi":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104145","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104145","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Sustainability science has grown significantly as an interdisciplinary field in terms of publications and institutional relevance, yet continues to face substantial epistemological and methodological challenges. This article focuses on the critical self-reflection processes within sustainability science—defined as the systematic examination by scientists of their own knowledge production practices, methodologies, and epistemic foundations—as researchers actively construct this emerging field. This reflexive process, through which scientists critically assess both what they know and how they know it, plays a crucial role in consolidating sustainability science as a new scientific specialty. Through review of articles indexed in Web of Science (WoS) and SCOPUS up to July 2023 using key concepts of “science” and “sustainability” we identified 46 articles for analyzing these reflexive processes. Our analysis reveals four cross-cutting dimensions structuring the field: 1) thematic delimitation, characterized by diversity yet fragmentation; 2) inter- and trans-disciplinary knowledge generation modes that, while widely endorsed, face significant implementation challenges; 3) the public and decisive character of knowledge; and 4) institutional configurations that both enable and constrain the field's development. The findings emphasize that sustainability science's reflexive process not only contributes to its own maturation as a scientific specialty but also offers valuable insights for broader societal questions regarding the production of relevant and public knowledge in the face of complex socio-ecological challenges. This reflexivity represents a distinctive feature that enables sustainability science to bridge disciplinary boundaries while fostering more participatory and transformative approaches to knowledge creation that can address pressing sustainability issues worldwide.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":313,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Science & Policy","volume":"171 ","pages":"Article 104145"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144471949","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Strategic foresight analysis for the management of land-sea interface in a climate change context: A comprehensive literature review","authors":"Gea Grassi ,&nbsp;Federica Zennaro ,&nbsp;Gianluca Ferraro ,&nbsp;Raoul Beunen ,&nbsp;Jean-Marc Douguet ,&nbsp;Elisa Furlan","doi":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104111","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104111","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The Land-Sea Interface (LSI) is a dynamic zone where terrestrial and marine ecosystems interact, supporting critical economic activities and providing essential ecological benefits. However, these areas face the multiple land- and sea-based challenges of climate change and multi-level governance fragmentation.</div><div>In this context, innovative methodologies are needed to explore future scenarios and support decisions. Strategic foresight analysis has emerged as a proactive approach to address complex issues, helping anticipate and prepare for future challenges. This article summarizes the current literature on strategic foresight analysis for managing LSIs. Through a scoping assessment, the fundamental concepts and theoretical frameworks are identified. This step provides the foundation for conducting a scientometric analysis, providing insights into the evolution and areas of interest of this approach. Next, a systematic review examines peer-reviewed publications that apply strategic foresight at the LSI, emphasizing aspects such as focus topics, stakeholder engagement, and tools utilized.</div><div>Review results reveal some main advantages, including its interdisciplinarity and capacity to facilitate transdisciplinary collaborative exercises to anticipate threats, and inform adaptive decision-making processes.</div><div>Tools such as horizon scanning and scenario planning are widely explored; however, other methods, including backcasting and road mapping, remain unexploited.</div><div>Trends evidence increasing climate change considerations, although most studies emphasize qualitative approaches instead of data-based quantitative analysis.</div><div>Finally, many foresight studies emphasize participatory approaches. However, local communities and Indigenous populations perspectives, remain insufficient.</div><div>The future of LSI governance relies on inclusive and adaptive approaches, where strategic foresight empowers societies to navigate, adapt, and shape the future.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":313,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Science & Policy","volume":"171 ","pages":"Article 104111"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144364663","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mainstreaming citizen science in policy: Adaptations needed in policy and how to achieve them in five European countries","authors":"Katharina Hölscher ,&nbsp;Julia M. Wittmayer ,&nbsp;V. Igno Notermans ,&nbsp;Madeleine Cléa Montanari ,&nbsp;Antonella Passani ,&nbsp;Annelli Janssen","doi":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104148","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104148","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The potential of citizen science remains underutilised in conventional policy practice for various reasons – a compelling one being that the policy system itself must adapt to leverage this potential. This paper aims to explore what mainstreaming citizen science in policy entails and how it can be realised. We define mainstreaming as the ongoing, incremental processes of creating and re-forming the institutional conditions that enable policy-making to operationalise and incorporate citizen science. We focus on identifying 1) the contributions of citizen science to policy-making and the challenges for leveraging these contributions, and 2) mainstreaming strategies to create the institutional conditions that enable the uptake of citizen science in environmental policy. Through case studies conducted in five European countries (Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, United Kingdom), we generate contextualised and synthesised insights across different policy contexts. Our findings highlight the potential of mainstreaming citizen science to enhance environmental policy-making, enabling it to address complex societal challenges more effectively and equitably. Citizen science marks new modalities of public engagement, which change the roles and relations between policy-makers, scientists and citizens, shifting these towards becoming collaborators and co-creators. This requires also changing the processes by which policy problems and solutions are defined, implemented and monitored, as well as the underlying structures and resources that support the uptake of such processes by policy-makers.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":313,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Science & Policy","volume":"171 ","pages":"Article 104148"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144364664","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Out of flood front areas: Wetland restoration may reduce internal displacement","authors":"Leonardo Felipe Bairos Moreira ,&nbsp;Iberê Farina Machado ,&nbsp;Natália Paludo Smaniotto ,&nbsp;Leonardo Maltchik","doi":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104146","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104146","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Heavy rainfall and flooding have triggered record numbers of displacements in southern Brazil. Evidence indicates that human-driven climate change is exacerbating displacement trends in South America. Human factors, including inadequate flood protection systems and wetland degradation for agricultural expansion, further amplified the devastation. The economic toll is staggering, with losses exceeding US$6.1 billion in income and recovery costs estimated at US$7.2 billion. We advocate for a multi-stakeholder approach that integrates wetland restoration, disaster risk financing, and institutional coordination, aligning with existing frameworks such as Brazil’s National Climate Change Policy and Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan. Displacement costs are still not often integrated into national policies and planning. Voluntary relocation, often without minimal support from local governments, is the overall rule in many hazard-exposed communities. Planned relocation is a complex, long-term strategy requiring substantial investment. Options of early warning and shelter may be discouraging where the perceived risk is high. In such cases, state officials may incentivize landowners to abandon lands destined for wetland restoration. Although the idea represents a significant paradigm shift, there are few available options where the river fluctuations are extreme. Beyond relocating at-risk communities, effective flood risk management must incorporate wetland restoration into climate adaptation policies. Lessons from global cases demonstrate the need for structured funding, landowner incentives, and community-driven relocation strategies. As Brazil prepares to host COP30, prioritizing wetland recovery could position the country as a leader in climate resilience while addressing the urgent needs of flood-vulnerable populations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":313,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Science & Policy","volume":"171 ","pages":"Article 104146"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144329717","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"SaRVO framework for urban water utilities: Building resilient, liveable, and sustainable cities","authors":"Chandni Bedi ,&nbsp;Arun Kansal ,&nbsp;Pierre Mukheibir","doi":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104135","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104135","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>People’s engagement with policies and management systems influences their effectiveness in making cities resilient, liveable and sustainable. It is, therefore, crucial to understand people's perceptions and values. We used a novel Stakeholders and actors, Relationships, Values and Outcomes – Urban Water Management (SaRVO-UWM) framework and fuzzy cognitive mapping to examine the differences in perceptions of, and the values attached to, water as a scarce resource by domestic water users living in three settlement types, namely mainstream areas in cities, slums, and peri-urban areas, within Gurugram City, in the northern Indian state of Haryana in Global South. The perceptions and values were ascertained through FGDs to reveal the participants’ values on the liveability concepts of urban water management systems derived from multiple sources. The assessment revealed the differences in the prioritization of values attached to water among the three groups. The relevant drivers across environmental, social, technical, and economic factors were identified with overlaps between them. The study highlights the need for diverse adaptive strategies, such as investing in a secure water supply and promoting mandatory water harvesting, to improve liveability across different urban settlements. It emphasizes the importance of incorporating water-related traditions into urban water management and suggests effective communication tailored to each settlement to foster pro-planet behaviour. Policymakers are encouraged to develop affordable pricing mechanisms for reliable water use and design localized policies that align with global frameworks, promoting equity in building resilient and sustainable cities.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":313,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Science & Policy","volume":"171 ","pages":"Article 104135"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144322462","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Negotiating knowledge and action for sustainable rangeland management: Successes and failures of boundary work at the science-policy-society interface in Iceland.","authors":"Jónína S. Þorláksdóttir ,&nbsp;Annemarie van Paassen ,&nbsp;Bryndís Marteinsdóttir ,&nbsp;Isabel C. Barrio ,&nbsp;Ása L. Aradóttir","doi":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104134","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104134","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Rangeland degradation due to unsustainable land use is a global concern. In Iceland, livestock overgrazing has contributed to significant degradation and desertification, yet policy and management efforts to align agricultural practices with sustainability goals have fallen short of intended social and ecological outcomes. This study examines four episodes of boundary work in Icelandic rangeland governance between 1997 and 2021, analysing how actor relationships, shifting governance structures, and knowledge integration influenced sustainability outcomes. Findings reveal an initial period of openness, where scientists and policymakers successfully mobilised farmers toward sustainability-oriented actions. Limited knowledge co-production and frequent institutional restructuring, however, disrupted trust-building efforts, weakened legitimacy, and led farmers to increasingly question sustainability criteria, which resulted in policy resistance and contested governance arrangements. Ecological assessments became sources of conflict, reflecting divergent stakeholder understandings of sustainability and knowledge credibility. The episode-based analysis of boundary used within this study demonstrated how credibility, legitimacy, and salience of knowledge evolve over time, shaping governance trajectories. The study highlights the need for stable yet adaptive governance mechanisms that embed participatory knowledge co-production from the outset, explicitly address power-dynamics, and ensure transparency, accountability, and continuous social-ecological monitoring and evaluation. It also demonstrates that participation alone does not guarantee sustainability transformation unless it challenges existing power structures and fosters institutional adaptation. Strengthening scientists’ capacities for transdisciplinary research and knowledge brokerage is essential for promoting more inclusive and effective sustainability governance.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":313,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Science & Policy","volume":"171 ","pages":"Article 104134"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144322461","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A typology of water-energy-food nexus research","authors":"J. Leah Jones-Crank","doi":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104131","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104131","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The water-energy-food (WEF) nexus was introduced as an approach to address the combined water, energy, and food security challenges of the late 2000s. As an integrated approach, the WEF nexus combines these three resources together to measure and manage the trade-offs, co-benefits, and relationships between them and to integrate collaboration and policy between their related governance sectors. However, scholars have noted that a key challenge in the literature is a lack of a clear and consistent definition of the WEF nexus. With the volume and diversity of WEF nexus publications, a single definition may no longer be sufficient. Therefore, this perspective article addresses this limitation by developing a typology of the WEF nexus to categorize the framings and definitions of WEF nexus research. This typology provides clarity both in designing future WEF nexus research projects and in categorizing existing research. It develops the typology across two categories: the level of integration within the research design (as multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, or transdisciplinary integration) and the weighting of the three sectors (whether water, energy, and food are all considered equally or whether one sector is emphasized over the other two). By using these two dimensions, this article develops a typology with six categories of the WEF nexus. Scholars may use this typology to accurately and consistently describe and design WEF nexus research within the specific context of their research study.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":313,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Science & Policy","volume":"171 ","pages":"Article 104131"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144322463","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}