Read online book Routledge Explorations in Sustainability and Governance: Resource Accounting for Sustainability Assessment : The Nexus Between Energy, Food, Water and Land Use (2014, Hardcover) by TXT, EPUB
9780415720595 0415720591 The demands placed on land, water, energy and other natural resources are exacerbated as the world population continues to increase together with the expectations of economic growth. This, combined with concerns over environmental change, presents a set of scientific, policy and management issues that are critical for sustainability. Resource Accounting for Sustainability Assessment: The nexus between energy, food, water and land use offers an approach for multi-scale, integrated assessment of this nexus. It presents a comprehensive and original method of resource accounting for integrated sustainability assessments. The approach is illustrated with three detailed case studies: the islands of Mauritius, the Indian state of Punjab, and the energy economy of South Africa. This provides insights through exploring the relationships between flows of goods, services, and materials, and the funds to be reproduced of natural, human, social, financial, physical, and economic capitals, at multiple scales. The book provides a badly needed quality control on the information used in deliberative processes about policy and planning activities for sustainability and food, water, energy and environmental security issues. This innovative book will be of interest to researchers, students, and practitioners in the fields of sustainability science, international development, industrial ecology, sustainable resource management, geography and ecological economics., The nexus of inter-related issues concerning land use, water, energy, food and population presents a diversity of scientific, policy and management challenges. This book offers an approach for multi-scale, integrated assessment of this nexus. It presents a comprehensive and innovative method of integrated sustainability assessments, illustrated with three detailed case studies: the islands of Mauritius, the Indian state of Punjab, and the emerging economy of South Africa. The approach is based in resource accounting, providing insights through exploring the relationships between flows of goods, services, and materials, and the funds of natural, human, social, financial, physical, and economic capitals, at multiple scales. The first part introduces the main theoretical and methodological challenges inherent in the exploration of the nexus. It emphasizes the need for integrating quantitative analyses of coupled human and environmental systems across different scales and the different dimensions considered. It then illustrates the main theoretical concepts used to generate the diagnostic-simulator toolkit and provides a general procedure to carry out the proposed analysis. The second part illustrates each of the various elements of the toolkit that are required to generate the multi-scale integrated assessment, combining quantitative and qualitative variables organized in multi-level matrices and GIS-based data. Finally the methodology is demonstrated in the case studies and shows different ways of exploring the nexus between land, water, energy, food, wealth and population. This is a hugely innovative book for researchers and students in sustainability science, international development, industrial ecology, sustainable resource management, geography and ecological economics. It provides a badly needed quality control on the information used in deliberative processes about policy and planning activities for sustainability and security issues related to population, economic growth, land, food, energy, and water.
9780415720595 0415720591 The demands placed on land, water, energy and other natural resources are exacerbated as the world population continues to increase together with the expectations of economic growth. This, combined with concerns over environmental change, presents a set of scientific, policy and management issues that are critical for sustainability. Resource Accounting for Sustainability Assessment: The nexus between energy, food, water and land use offers an approach for multi-scale, integrated assessment of this nexus. It presents a comprehensive and original method of resource accounting for integrated sustainability assessments. The approach is illustrated with three detailed case studies: the islands of Mauritius, the Indian state of Punjab, and the energy economy of South Africa. This provides insights through exploring the relationships between flows of goods, services, and materials, and the funds to be reproduced of natural, human, social, financial, physical, and economic capitals, at multiple scales. The book provides a badly needed quality control on the information used in deliberative processes about policy and planning activities for sustainability and food, water, energy and environmental security issues. This innovative book will be of interest to researchers, students, and practitioners in the fields of sustainability science, international development, industrial ecology, sustainable resource management, geography and ecological economics., The nexus of inter-related issues concerning land use, water, energy, food and population presents a diversity of scientific, policy and management challenges. This book offers an approach for multi-scale, integrated assessment of this nexus. It presents a comprehensive and innovative method of integrated sustainability assessments, illustrated with three detailed case studies: the islands of Mauritius, the Indian state of Punjab, and the emerging economy of South Africa. The approach is based in resource accounting, providing insights through exploring the relationships between flows of goods, services, and materials, and the funds of natural, human, social, financial, physical, and economic capitals, at multiple scales. The first part introduces the main theoretical and methodological challenges inherent in the exploration of the nexus. It emphasizes the need for integrating quantitative analyses of coupled human and environmental systems across different scales and the different dimensions considered. It then illustrates the main theoretical concepts used to generate the diagnostic-simulator toolkit and provides a general procedure to carry out the proposed analysis. The second part illustrates each of the various elements of the toolkit that are required to generate the multi-scale integrated assessment, combining quantitative and qualitative variables organized in multi-level matrices and GIS-based data. Finally the methodology is demonstrated in the case studies and shows different ways of exploring the nexus between land, water, energy, food, wealth and population. This is a hugely innovative book for researchers and students in sustainability science, international development, industrial ecology, sustainable resource management, geography and ecological economics. It provides a badly needed quality control on the information used in deliberative processes about policy and planning activities for sustainability and security issues related to population, economic growth, land, food, energy, and water.