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A decade ago, scientists and practitioners working in environmental water management crystallized the progress and direction of environmental flows science, practice, and policy in The Brisbane Declaration and Global Action Agenda (2007), during the 10th International Riversymposium and International Environmental Flows Conference held in Brisbane, Australia. The 2007 Declaration highlights the significance of environmental water allocations for humans and freshwater-dependent ecosystems, and sets out a nine-point global action agenda. This was the first consensus document that bought together the diverse experiences across regions and disciplines, and was significant in setting a common vision and direction for environmental flows internationally. After a decade of uptake and innovation in environmental flows, the 2007 declaration and action agenda was revisited at the 20th International Riversymposium and Environmental Flows Conference, held in Brisbane, Australia, in 2017. The objective was to publicize achievements since 2007 and update the declaration and action agenda to reflect collective progress, innovation, and emerging challenges for environmental flows policy, practice and science worldwide. This paper on The Brisbane Declaration and Global Action Agenda on Environmental Flows (2018) describes the inclusive consultation processes that guided the review of the 2007 document. The 2018 Declaration presents an urgent call for action to protect and restore environmental flows and aquatic ecosystems for their biodiversity, intrinsic values, and ecosystem services, as a central element of integrated water resources management, and as a foundation for achievement of water-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Global Action Agenda (2018) makes 35 actionable recommendations to guide and support implementation of environmental flows through legislation and regulation, water management programs, and research, linked by partnership arrangements involving diverse stakeholders. An important new element of the Declaration and Action Agenda is the emphasis given to full and equal participation for people of all cultures, and respect for their rights, responsibilities and systems of governance in environmental water decisions. These social and cultural dimensions of e-flow management warrant far more attention. Actionable recommendations present a pathway forward for a new era of scientific research and innovation, shared visions, collaborative implementation programs, and adaptive governance of environmental flows, suited to new social, and environmental contexts driven by planetary pressures, such as human population growth and climate change.

Abstract. Urban and population growth results in increasing pressure on the public utilities like transport, energy, healthcare services, crime management and emergency services in the realm of smart city management. Smart management of these services increases the necessity of dealing with big data which is come from different sources with various types and formats like 3D city information, GPS, traffic, mobile, Building Information Model (BIM), environmental, social activities and IoT stream data. Therefore, an approach to mine/analysis/interpret these data and extract useful knowledge from this diverse big data sources emerges in order to extract the hidden pattern of data using computational algorithms from statistics, machine learning and information theory. However, inconsistency, duplication and repetition and misconducting with the different type of discrete and continuous data can cause erroneous decision-making. This paper focuses on providing a rules extraction and supervised-decision making methods for facilitating the fusion of BIM and 2D and 3D GIS-based information coupling with IoT stream data residing in a spatial database and 3D BIM data. The proposed methods can be used in those applications like Emergency Response, Evacuation Planning, Occupancy Mapping, and Urban Monitoring to Smart Multi-Buildings so that their input data mostly come from 2D and 3D GIS, BIM and IoT stream. This research focus on proposing the unified rules extraction and decision engine to help smart citizens and managers using BIM and GIS data to make smart decision rather than focus on applications in certain field of BIM and GIS.

With 120 million hectares of forest area, Indonesia has the third largest area of biodiversity-rich tropical forests in the world, and it is well-known as a mega-biodiversity country. However, in 2020, only 70 percent of this area remained forested. The government has consistently undertaken corrective actions to achieve Sustainable Development Goal targets, with a special focus on Goals #1 (no poverty), #2 (zero hunger), #3 (good health and well-being), #7 (affordable and clean energy), #8 (decent work and economic growth), #13 (climate action), and #15 (life on land). Good environmental governance is a core concept in Indonesia’s forest management and includes mainstreaming ecosystem services as a framework for sustainable forest management. This paper analyzes efforts to mainstream Indonesia’s remaining forest ecosystem services. We review the state of Indonesia’s forests in relation to deforestation dynamics, climate change, and ecosystem service potential and options and provide recommendations for mainstreaming strategies regarding aspects of policy, planning, and implementation, as well as the process of the articulation of ecosystem services and their alternative funding.

Purpose– This paper aims to re-examine Tainter’s dismissal of the voluntary simplification strategy. Joseph Tainter argues that “sustainability” is about problem-solving and that problem-solving increases social complexity. But he also argues that social complexity requires energy and resources, and this implies that solving problems, including environmental problems, usually demands increases in energy and resource consumption, not reductions. For this reason Tainter argues that voluntary simplification – the strategy of choosing to reduce consumption – is not an available means of solving the problems of civilisation.Design/methodology/approach– This paper briefly outlines Tainter’s theory of diminishing returns on complexity and lays out his arguments against voluntary simplification. The critical sections of the paper examine those arguments and find certain ambiguities in them that open up space of voluntary simplification.Findings– Part of my disagreement with Tainter turns on differing notions of “sustainability.” Whereas Tainter seems to use sustainability to mean sustaining the existing civilisation, the author uses sustainability to mean changing the form of civilisation through voluntary simplification, insofar as that is required for humanity to operate within the carrying capacity of the planet. By exposing the indeterminate, value-laden nature of what constitutes a “problem” and what constitutes an appropriate “solution,” it becomes clear that some societal problems can be dissolved rather than solved, that problems have various solutions and that a society’s available energy supply can be redistributed to achieve voluntary simplification while still solving existing and ongoing problems.Originality/value– Given that Tainter seems to accept that his own conception of sustainability will eventually lead to collapse, the author feels he is wrong to be so dismissive of voluntary simplification as a strategy for potentially avoiding collapse. It is, the author argues, our only alternative to collapse, and if that is so, voluntary simplification ought to be given our most rigorous attention and commitment, even if the chances of success do not seem high at all. This paper provides a new analysis of the voluntary simplification strategy and shows that it holds more promise than Tainter appreciates.

Abstract Hydropower development involves managing a network of diverse stakeholders. Owners play a critical part in effectively cooperating and establishing inter-organizational linking with stakeholders to achieve multiple project objectives. According to the data which is from the construction industry of hydropower in China, the research aims to investigate the causal relationships between cooperation with stakeholders and inter-organizational linking systematically, together with their impacts on the owners' social capital by developing and testing a conceptual model. Path analysis confirms that cooperation with stakeholders cannot only directly improve owners' social capital but also exert its influence on social capital through enhancement of inter-organizational linking, thereby improving project performance and winning external supports for owners' long-term development. Social network analysis shows that, from the perspective of owners, project stakeholders are clearly grouped into four clusters related to project feasibility, implementation, procurement and resettlement of migrants. These clusters reflect stakeholder's different roles and connections with each other in hydropower development. Understanding the above in-depth underlying relationships is fundamental for improving multi-organizational dynamics research to a state of the art, and help project participants to appropriately adopt cooperative strategies for maximizing the effectiveness of each stakeholder's resources.

Understanding the spatial variability of household carbon emissions is necessary for formulating sustainable and low-carbon energy policy. However, data on household carbon emissions is limited in China, the world’s largest greenhouse gases emitter. This study quantifies and maps household carbon emissions in Shanghai using a city-wide household survey. The findings reveal substantial spatial variability in household carbon emissions, especially in transport-related emissions. Low emission clusters are founded in Hongkou, Xuhui, Luwan, Jinshan, and Fengxian. High emission clusters are located in Jiading and Pudong. Overall, the spatial pattern of household carbon emissions in Shanghai is donut-shaped: lowest in the urban core, increasing in the surrounding suburban areas, and declining again in the urban fringe and rural regions. The household emissions are correlated with a number of housing and socioeconomic factors, including car ownership, type of dwelling, size of dwelling, age of dwelling, and income. The findings underscore the importance of a localized approach to low-carbon policymaking and implementation.

Abstract Background National forest inventory and forest monitoring systems are more important than ever considering continued global degradation of trees and forests. These systems are especially important in a country like Bangladesh, which is characterised by a large population density, climate change vulnerability and dependence on natural resources. With the aim of supporting the Government’s actions towards sustainable forest management through reliable information, the Bangladesh Forest Inventory (BFI) was designed and implemented through three components: biophysical inventory, socio-economic survey and remote sensing-based land cover mapping. This article documents the approach undertaken by the Forest Department under the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change to establish the BFI as a multipurpose, efficient, accurate and replicable national forest assessment. The design, operationalization and some key results of the process are presented. Methods The BFI takes advantage of the latest and most well-accepted technological and methodological approaches. Importantly, it was designed through a collaborative process which drew from the experience and knowledge of multiple national and international entities. Overall, 1781 field plots were visited, 6400 households were surveyed, and a national land cover map for the year 2015 was produced. Innovative technological enhancements include a semi-automated segmentation approach for developing the wall-to-wall land cover map, an object-based national land characterisation system, consistent estimates between sample-based and mapped land cover areas, use of mobile apps for tree species identification and data collection, and use of differential global positioning system for referencing plot centres. Results Seven criteria, and multiple associated indicators, were developed for monitoring progress towards sustainable forest management goals, informing management decisions, and national and international reporting needs. A wide range of biophysical and socioeconomic data were collected, and in some cases integrated, for estimating the indicators. Conclusions The BFI is a new information source tool for helping guide Bangladesh towards a sustainable future. Reliable information on the status of tree and forest resources, as well as land use, empowers evidence-based decision making across multiple stakeholders and at different levels for protecting natural resources. The integrated socio-economic data collected provides information about the interactions between people and their tree and forest resources, and the valuation of ecosystem services. The BFI is designed to be a permanent assessment of these resources, and future data collection will enable monitoring of trends against the current baseline. However, additional institutional support as well as continuation of collaboration among national partners is crucial for sustaining the BFI process in future.