Environmental Science & Policy最新文献

{"title":"Reimagining alternative socioecological futures: Transformative narratives for a Second Scientific Revolution","authors":"Eduardo Rodríguez Batista","doi":"10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104319","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104319","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The Anthropocene has become a dominant framework for describing the current human-driven geological epoch. However, this concept is often rooted in dualistic worldviews that separate humans from nature. This article examines the colonial, capitalist, and mechanistic discourses that have sustained these divisions, linking them to the origins and persistence of the socioecological crisis. It advocates for a shift toward decolonial and non-anthropocentric perspectives that reimagine human–nature relationships. Central to this reorientation is the power of transformative narratives to challenge dominant scientific myths and promote interspecies mutualism and interconnectedness. Drawing on insights from disciplines such as evolutionary biology, political ecology and ecofeminism, among others, this work underscores the importance of these narratives in shaping collective action and imagining alternative socioecological futures. It ultimately calls for a Second Scientific Revolution, a cultural and scientific paradigm transformation towards more inclusive, empathetic, and sustainable ways of inhabiting the Earth.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":313,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Science & Policy","volume":"176 ","pages":"Article 104319"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146023780","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":"Governing the trade-off between the co-production of actionable knowledge and academic publishing in transdisciplinary sustainability research","authors":"Tom Dedeurwaerdere ,&nbsp;Stephanie Jahn ,&nbsp;Jens Newig","doi":"10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104318","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104318","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Despite their stated ambitions, the societal outputs of many transdisciplinary sustainability research projects remain at the level of research dissemination to policy makers and concerned stakeholders, rather than organizing a truly interactive knowledge co-production process. In addition, projects that organize interactive knowledge co-production often achieve either a high level of actionable knowledge outputs for the key societal stakeholders or a high level of publication outputs for the scientific community. This paper analyses this trade-off in more detail based on the survey results from a unique sample of 50 completed EU research projects that fall under the same funding requirement to combine societal impact and scientific excellence in so-called \"Research and Innovation Actions\". The results confirm the difficulty for many projects to achieve both goals. In fact, the results show that only about half (54 %) of the projects produced actionable knowledge outputs at the end of the project, and only 34 % achieved both a high level of actionable knowledge outputs and a high level of peer-reviewed articles. The analysis of the survey results shows that co-design of research tasks related to field work, such as social science data collection or technical experimentation in real-world environments, contributes to actionable knowledge, but also potentially leads to fewer publications. An important exception to this finding is the case of intermediate levels of field research co-design. In this case, the strengthening of relational and reflective-normative trust between scientific researchers and social actors contributes to both actionable knowledge outputs and academic publications.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":313,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Science & Policy","volume":"176 ","pages":"Article 104318"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146023779","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":"Is there water sector transformation evident in policies? Experiences from Asia and Africa","authors":"Mijo Luke ,&nbsp;Risper Ajwang’ Ondiek ,&nbsp;Fides Izdori ,&nbsp;Gitima Das ,&nbsp;Sumit Vij","doi":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104307","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104307","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>With climate change and political uncertainties, policies worldwide have undergone several reforms, promising transformation for improving water access and usage. However, unsustainable and unequal outcomes persist in several countries. The article investigates the gap between the rhetoric and reality of transformation within the existing water-related policies in two South Asian and two East African countries. We unravel the key elements of transformation within the water sector by employing an analytical framework of policy characteristics, <em>scalability, power-sensitive-inclusivity, reflexivity, institutional flexibility, and temporality</em> (SPIRIT). Our study analysed the presence of these characteristics in the existing water-related policies in four countries: Bangladesh, India, Kenya, and Tanzania. A total of 65 policy documents were analysed from India (n = 26), Bangladesh (n = 19), Kenya (n = 12), and Tanzania (n = 8). Our findings show that the policies from India and Bangladesh follow a techno-managerial approach to transformation and have short-term vision with a national focus. The policies have limited focus on power sensitivity and do not include marginalised actors such as fisherfolk and small boat traders. The East African policies advocate change at multiple scales (local, and transnational), value the participation of marginalised groups in the policy-making process, and encourage collaboration across various sectors and stakeholders to address emerging issues, but lack temporality. We conclude that water sector policies in these countries are not transformative despite years of reform and promises made. Therefore, there is a need for politicisation and pluralisation of the transformation process to design pathways.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":313,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Science & Policy","volume":"176 ","pages":"Article 104307"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145974362","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":"Values, rules, and knowledge: Understanding and enabling land use change decisions as adaptation to climate change","authors":"Nicholas A. Cradock-Henry ,&nbsp;Nicholas Kirk ,&nbsp;Paula Blackett ,&nbsp;Justin Connolly","doi":"10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104309","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104309","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Changing productive land use can be a transformational adaptation strategy to reduce climate risk and enable new opportunities for farmers and growers. Such decisions, however, are complicated by uncertainty, long lead times, and substantial capital investment. These individual and collective choices are shaped by interactions between values, rules, and knowledge (VRK), which together define the decision-making contexts that enable or constrain land-use transformation. We apply the VRK framework in case studies of two agricultural regions in Aotearoa New Zealand using participatory workshops and systems-thinking tools, including timelines and causal loop diagramming. The analysis reveals that land-use decisions are strongly shaped by values (such as place attachment and occupational identity) and knowledge, which is often oriented toward optimising existing production systems rather than exploring alternatives. In contrast, governance and policy rules play a more indirect role, primarily by reinforcing or constraining experimentation. By making visible feedbacks, path dependencies, and leverage points within decision contexts, the study shows how systems approaches can support more effective alignment between regulatory settings, incentives, and farmers’ values and aspirations, thereby enabling climate-resilient land-use transitions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":313,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Science & Policy","volume":"176 ","pages":"Article 104309"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145974363","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":"National circumstances matter: How climate change vulnerability and political instability affect greenhouse gas coverage in nationally determined contributions","authors":"Jaeeun Koo ,&nbsp;Sangchan Park ,&nbsp;Yunsung Lee","doi":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104283","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104283","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Almost 200 countries have submitted their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) in response to the 2015 Paris Agreement’s call for net-zero targets. However, critics posit that these collective efforts may fall short of limiting global temperature rise, in part because these countries differ significantly in the scope of greenhouse gases (GHGs) included in their national climate targets. This study investigates why some countries set a narrower set of GHGs in their NDCs than others. Drawing on data from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) NDC registry and Climate Watch, we quantify GHG coverage by weighting each gas according to its 100-year Global Warming Potential (GWP-100), thereby capturing relative climate impacts and ensuring alignment with national inventory practices. We then estimate ordinary least squares, ordered logit, and negative binomial regressions to examine the influence of two national-level factors, climate change vulnerability and political instability, on GHG coverage. The results show that both these factors are negatively associated with the scope of GHGs covered in NDCs. These findings underscore that expanding GHG coverage in NDCs requires not only technical capacity building but also institutional conditions that reduce climate change vulnerability and enhance political stability, thereby enabling countries to commit to more comprehensive mitigation goals.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":313,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Science & Policy","volume":"175 ","pages":"Article 104283"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145622811","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 diagnostic framework for integrated flood risk governance: Conceptual foundations and insights from Lagos and Accra","authors":"Olasunkanmi Habeeb Okunola ,&nbsp;Daniel Adeoluwa Adeniyi ,&nbsp;Himanshu Shekhar ,&nbsp;Saskia E. Werners","doi":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104304","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104304","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Amid escalating urban flood risks driven by climate change and poorly managed urban growth, there is growing recognition of the need to strengthen and integrate flood risk governance systems. However, existing governance arrangements in many cities remain fragmented, siloed, and inadequately inclusive. This paper addresses a critical gap in the literature by proposing and applying an Integrated Flood Risk Governance framework that systematically assesses governance integration through three interrelated dimensions: institutional interaction, actor relationships, and policy mixes. Drawing on policy document analysis and in-depth interviews, the study explores the applicability of the Integrated Flood Risk Governance framework in two high-risk urban settings: Lagos, Nigeria, and Accra, Ghana. The findings reveal that although integration is emphasized in formal policies, practical implementation is hampered by highly centralized governance structures, limited stakeholder participation, and weak coordination mechanisms. In both cities, the private sector remains marginally involved, and policy coherence is often undermined by poor enforcement and funding constraints. This study demonstrates the utility of the Integrated Flood Risk Governance framework in diagnosing governance fragmentation and highlights the need for more inclusive, adaptive, and participatory approaches to flood risk governance.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":313,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Science & Policy","volume":"175 ","pages":"Article 104304"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145880021","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":"Visualizing nature: A review of photovoice as a method for understanding environmental change","authors":"Sofie Mortensen ,&nbsp;Francois Questiaux ,&nbsp;Jasmine Vorburger ,&nbsp;Shae Barber ,&nbsp;Hilary Oliva Faxon","doi":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104298","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104298","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Originally developed in the field of public health, the participatory photography research methodology known as “photovoice” has increasingly been used by interdisciplinary environmental scientists. This scoping review assesses this trend, identifying and analyzing 132 relevant journal articles to evaluate how researchers deploy this methodology to understand environmental change processes and perceptions. We find that photovoice has been applied to a range of environmental topics, including environmental health, climate change, water governance, and rural and urban development, complementing a turn towards community-based research methods and co-production of knowledge within the field. We interrogate who is included in photovoice projects and how they were conducted, showing how the original intent of the method - to highlight the perceptions, voices, and experiences of rural women - has been broadened to capture lived experiences of marginalized groups such as resource-dependent, low-income and Indigenous communities. We highlight what we see as the core contribution of this method - understanding alternative epistemologies of environmental change – and argue that photovoice has high potential to capture, explore, and share the views and voices of marginalized people. While we caution that studies should consciously consider the trade-offs involved in this time-consuming and open-ended method, we argue that increasing use of this method can contribute to our understanding of a range of empirical topics as well as fostering epistemological pluralism and insights that can lead to action.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":313,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Science & Policy","volume":"175 ","pages":"Article 104298"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145734516","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":"Information gaps in the global implementation of green hydrogen: A digital media-based analysis of socioenvironmental impacts and challenges","authors":"Claudio Cortés-Vásquez ,&nbsp;Charel González-Salinas ,&nbsp;Lidia Meneses ,&nbsp;Fermín M. Alfaro ,&nbsp;Melissa Pozo ,&nbsp;Carla Arratia ,&nbsp;Bárbara Silva ,&nbsp;Alexis Gutierrez ,&nbsp;Héctor Basaure ,&nbsp;Carlos F. Gaymer ,&nbsp;Francisco A. Squeo","doi":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104289","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104289","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Green hydrogen (GH₂) is increasingly positioned as a cornerstone of the global energy transition, offering a pathway to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, its production entails socio-environmental risks such as biodiversity loss, land-use change, and intensive water consumption that are often underrepresented in public discourse. This study hypothesizes that, although GH₂ has gained global relevance, digital news media in strategic countries tend to underreport its socio-environmental challenges, influenced by local socioeconomic and informational contexts. The objective was to analyze how socio-environmental impacts of GH₂ are represented in freely accessible digital news media from 12 countries with diverse geographic, economic, and energy profiles. Using Google Advanced Search, the 100 most relevant articles per country (2012–2023) were collected, excluding blogs and opinion pieces. Articles were categorized by approach, scope, funding, energy source, impacts, and challenges. Data were compiled into a presence/absence matrix and analyzed with Principal Component Analysis (PCA), incorporating socioeconomic indicators such as GDP, Gini index, protected area coverage and WPFI. Results showed a predominance of economic and technological narratives, while socio-environmental risks appeared in less than 25 % of articles. Coverage varied among countries: Morocco and Chile highlighted water scarcity, whereas Brazil downplayed land-use pressures. PCA distinguished clusters, with emerging economies stressing exports and financing, while countries with higher biodiversity protection emphasized ecological risks. Overall, media discourse tended to “economize” GH₂, marginalizing environmental concerns and limiting critical debate. These patterns reinforce information asymmetries and highlight the need for more balanced communication to align GH₂ development with sustainability goals.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":313,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Science & Policy","volume":"175 ","pages":"Article 104289"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145787101","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":"Is a licence for small-scale mining a means, an end, or both? Politics of ASM formalisation and environmentally-responsible mining in Ghana","authors":"Francis Arthur-Holmes ,&nbsp;Emmanuel Selasi Tomude ,&nbsp;David Damtar","doi":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104290","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104290","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Legal and regulatory frameworks for the formalisation of artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) in Ghana are widely misunderstood, misinterpreted in policy and regulatory contexts, and skewed in leading public discourse. Consequently, this situation has led to disproportionate attention being paid to the roles of mining licences and operating permits in tackling environmental challenges in the sector. This paper critically examines the ASM policy intervention, asking whether the small-scale mining licence is a means, an end, or both, given the tilted focus and over-emphasis on the mining licence in ensuring responsible ASM in Ghana. Our research findings, based on analysis of expert interviews and secondary data, reveal that mining licences and environmental protection in ASM are deeply politicised and narrowly discussed. Further, our findings reveal a lack of discourse around the operating permits to improve environmental indicators. The discussion among most policymakers and key stakeholders, including parliamentarians, tends to present the mining licence as an end in itself and view it as sufficient to eliminate informalities in ASM and ensure environmentally sustainable mining practices. On the contrary, we argue that the small-scale mining licence is merely a means, providing a process through which, along with permits such as environmental and water use permits, an operating permit can be secured before any ASM activities begin. The operating permit serves as both a means and an end in itself, providing environmental directives for miners to engage in mine waste management practices and land reclamation activity after mine closure.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":313,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Science & Policy","volume":"175 ","pages":"Article 104290"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145683260","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":"Mapping the epistemic geography of the intergovernmental panel on climate change (1995–2022)","authors":"Alberte Bau Larsen ,&nbsp;Anders Kristian Munk ,&nbsp;Henning Sten Hansen ,&nbsp;Theresa Scavenius","doi":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104291","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104291","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper maps the epistemic geography of the mitigation working group (WGIII) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It thus contributes to the study of the science-policy interface of the IPCC and its authors. We mapped the WGIII authors’ scientific publications and created visual networks based on bibliographic coupling of the IPCC authors of Assessment Reports 2–6. We found that, over time, the scientific community behind integrated assessment models (IAMs) has gained greater prominence in the epistemic geography, and today most of the IPCC WGIII authors rely on IAMs as a way to analyze the impacts of mitigation efforts. Subsequently, we discuss the consequences of this development for climate knowledge, climate policy, and the crowding out of other relevant academic approaches, theories, and qualitative data. We conclude by suggesting a more comprehensive approach to the methodological approaches in the IPCC assessments.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":313,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Science & Policy","volume":"175 ","pages":"Article 104291"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145683313","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}