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An emission permit system (EPS) is a fixed-source environmental management system that is widely practiced worldwide. Since 2016, China has been building a fixed-source environmental management system with the EPS as its core. This paper summarizes the evolutionary process of China's EPS over the past 40 years considering four main stages: embryonic stage, local pilot stage, total emission control-based exploration stage, and reform stage of the core management system. This paper notes that China initially established a system of laws and technical specifications for emission permits, and emission permits are clearly becoming a mainstream trend in fixed-source management. The paper argues that there are still four problems in the current EPS reform (i.e., insufficient support of laws and regulations, poor integration of the EPS with other systems, unscientific design of the EPS, and insufficient implementation capacity after permit allocation). This paper puts forward 7 suggestions for further EPS reform, e.g., accelerating the formulation of the regulations on the EPS, strengthening the coordination with other fixed-source systems, improving the technical support system for the EPS, establishing a database system for emission permits, building a scientific and reasonable allocation method, improving the autonomy of pollutant monitoring in enterprises, and increasing information disclosure and public participation. The results may more accurately evaluate China's EPS in China's environmental protection system, provide scientific support for the promotion and development of the ongoing EPS reform and environmental management systems. The results may promote the development of pollution prevention, and an improvement in the environmental quality in China, and offer scientific guidance and reference for other countries to implement their own EPS. • This paper summarizes evolutionary process of China's EPS over the past 40 years. • There are 4 reform achievements and 4 reform problems of current China's EPS. • This paper puts forward 7 further reform suggestions for the China's EPS. • The results offer scientific support for promotion and development of EPS reform. • The results offer scientific guidance and reference for the EPS in other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a broad spectrum of proactivity in environmental management practices in companies and industries, ranging from purely reactive efforts to adhere to minimum regulatory standards to innovative projects to develop new pollution preventing technologies and risk mitigation strategies. In fact, the importance of a proactive environmental management is increasingly recognized by academics, practitioners and policy makers alike. However, proactivity is still not clearly captured by current environmental management models, which often do not include it as a core element and lack practical guidelines on how to operationalize it at firm-level. In order to systematize the fragmented understanding on proactive environmental management practices applied in companies and industries, including their operationalization and determinants, we conducted a comprehensive review of 116 academic papers. Our results are presented and discussed along three main perspectives: (i) evolutionary stage models; (ii) typology models; and (iii) proactive practices. By comparing these three perspectives, we found that only the evolutionary stage models can fully capture proactive environmental management approaches in an integrative way, while the other two perspectives assume proactivity is highly specific of an organizational sector or function. The results also allow us to clarify and distinguish proactivity-related terms and concepts that are often used interchangeably, such as cleaner production, pollution prevention and eco-efficiency. Finally, we developed a synthetizing framework of the current literature on firm-level environmental proactivity that integrates proactive practices (divided into three dimensions: organizational, operational, and communicational), drivers of proactivity and evolutionary maturity stages towards increased proactivity. This framework not only consolidates the current state-of-the-art in terms of proactive environmental management practices but it can also be thought of as a starting point for further research on the topic. • This paper systematize proactive environmental management practices. • Evolutionary stage models for environmental management are compared. • Typology models for environmental management are compared. • Proactive practices for environmental management are listed. • We listed organizational, operational, and communicational practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract In the 1990s, the emergence of Integrated Management Approaches to water, land and waste established a widely accepted understanding on integration of environmental systems. Nexus Approaches try to often build on these. This paper assesses i) the intended goals and features of three Integrated Management Approaches (Integrated Natural Resources Management - INRM, Integrated Water Resources Management - IWRM and Integrated Solid Waste Management - ISWM) and two Nexus Approaches (Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Nexus and Water-Soil-Waste (WSW) Nexus), and ii) how target systems and their integration are viewed in each of the Integrated Management Approaches. From this we assess commonalities and some lessons-learned for the Nexus. The method is based on a systematic literature review and a document analysis. From 1652 articles 52 peer reviewed papers were analysed. The results show that in terms of goals the Nexus Approaches are very similar to Integrated Management Approaches with the addition of clearly wanting to address governance and policy aspects e.g. in the WEF Nexus. Nexus Approaches try to move away from a single-resource centric view (e.g. WSW Nexus) and intend to go beyond resources towards sectors (e.g. WEF Nexus). It cannot be confirmed, that integration is clearly addressed in the analysed Integrated Management Approaches and what integration means is hardly defined. To provide some clarity for Nexus Approaches we propose a concept to describe integration by using " categories of integration " and the term " aspect " which includes systems, subsystems and other aspects alike. Highlights • Successes and failures of integrated management approaches can help the Nexus. • All approaches strive to achieve sustainability, while embracing complexity. • The Nexus aims at addressing governance and policy aspects. • Integration is not clearly addressed in the analysed integrated approaches. • The WSW Nexus' target systems go beyond a single-resource centric view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the links in the environmental management chain is the environmentally friendly utilization of the emerging post-industrial waste and improvement of the methods of processing thereof. The aim and novelty of this research was to evaluate the potential of fungi to purify wastewater containing post-industrial lignin, i.e. waste originating from the pulp and paper industry. Trichoderma were dominant in the composts with different qualities and quantities of lignocellulosic compounds. The Trichoderma strains used in the research were isolated from two lignocellulosic composts at three different time points (from 10-, 20- and 30-week-old composting mass). Eighteen strains of the genus Trichoderma were tested for their ability to biodegrade 0.2% post-industrial lignin. It was evaluated by determination of decolorization, activities of ligninolytic enzymes, and concentration of phenolic compounds in the post-culture liquid. The Trichoderma strains isolated from 10-week-old compost I and 30-week-old compost II showed the highest decolorization activity and biotransformation of dark post-industrial lignin. All strains secreted horseradish-like peroxidase (HRP-like), superoxide dismutase-like (SOD-like), xylanase, and phenolic compounds. Strains isolated from 30-week-old compost I and from 10-week-old compost II released the greatest amounts of phenolic compounds into the culture liquid containing post-industrial lignin. The strains isolated from 10- and 20-week-old compost were characterized by high SOD-like and HRP-like activity, respectively. The concentration of phenolic compounds measured with HPLC in Trichoderma fungus culture VII from compost I corresponded with the decolorization degree and high HRP-like activity. The study results indicate that the genus Trichoderma with decolorization activity isolated from the first composting stages can be used in the biotransformation of post-industrial lignin waste. Image 1 • Lignocellulosic composts are a source of potentially ligninolytic fungi. • Trichoderma strain from compost with grass have the highest decolorization activity. • Trichoderma strains can modify post-industrial lignin with ligninolytic enzymes. • The HPLC results confirmed the presence of phenolic compounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon neutrality is an important environmental management tool to deal with the global greenhouse effect. Addressing climate change is an important starting point for promoting the high-quality development of China's economy and the construction of ecological civilization, as well as an important area for participating in global governance and adhering to multilateralism. In this paper, from the perspective of carbon neutrality, taking China's Jiangsu Province as an example, the super-efficiency DEA model is selected to measure the level of ecological efficiency in Jiangsu, and on this basis, the Tobit model is used to verify the main factors affecting regional ecological efficiency. The results are as follows: (1) The regional eco-efficiency in Jiangsu shows a trend of decreasing from south to north, with obvious phenomenon of "club convergence", with significant spatial correlation and agglomeration. (2) The industrial structure is negatively related to the regional eco-efficiency of Jiangsu regions; Energy consumption structure has a positively impact in southern Jiangsu,but negatively in central and northern Jiangsu; FDI has a positively impact in central and northern Jiangsu, but negatively in southern Jiangsu; Regional economic development has a positively impact in southern and northern Jiangsu, but negatively in central Jiangsu; The progress in the technological level has positive effects on the eco-efficiency of all regions of Jiangsu. The final paper puts forward some suggestions based on the carbon neutral target Provide theoretical reference for achieving the goal of carbon neutrality. • Construct an regional ecological efficiency evaluation index system. • Use super-DEAmethod to measure ecological efficiency level. • Study from the perspective of carbon neutrality. • Propose a reference for achieving carbon neutrality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adaptive management is an experimental approach used by water management agencies around the world to manage and restore aquatic ecosystems. The effectiveness of the approach can often be constrained by inflexible institutional arrangements. In this paper we compare two cases where agencies have implemented adaptive management to manage and restore aquatic ecosystems. Our aim was to understand practitioners' perceptions of how institutional flexibility can be created for adaptive management. We interviewed 14 adaptive management practitioners working in the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia and 14 practitioners in Southern Florida, United States of America. We found that in both cases, just enough flexibility was created to enable experimentation, but informal institutional arrangements tended to constrain adaptive management. We also found that adaptive management was effective when an agency adopted collaborative and distributed leadership, but these leadership styles were difficult to sustain, and not always appropriate when attempting to create institutional flexibility. Our results illustrate how agencies, stakeholders and researchers can develop a shared understanding of how to manage and restore aquatic ecosystems, which in turn, helps create institutional flexibility for an agency to manage adaptively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has over 100 million Ha of forest and has significant potential to benefit from these forests, including through REDD+ if they are managed effectively. Effective governance of forest landscapes is essential for environmental management and equitable harnessing of ecosystem service benefits for communities. Poor governance, political instability, and capacity limitations in the DRC are widely highlighted. However, there have been few, if any, attempts to evaluate forest governance in the DRC, especially at the community level. This paper reports a community-level evaluation of forest governance in the DRC, using a survey method. The results suggest that REDD+ projects have the ability to improve forest governance as perceived by the community. The research shows that building the right capacity, consulting and accessing the needs of the community and building long-term projects and partnerships a key success factors. These findings and the novel approach to supporting communities to evaluate their governance are applicable to similar community-level forest governance contexts. • A novel participatory community evaluation of forest governance and its implications for REDD+. • The participatory governance evaluation in the DRC shows REDD+ can improve governance legitimacy. • Governance improvements are linked to capacity building, development activities and long term relationship building. • Ensuring communities are involved in activities, and see benefits is crucial for building governance legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a world of increasing interconnections in global trade as well as rapid change in climate and land cover, the accelerating introduction and spread of invasive species is a critical concern due to associated negative social and ecological impacts, both real and perceived. Much of the societal response to invasive species to date has been associated with negative economic consequences of invasions. This response has shaped a war-like approach to addressing invasions, one with an agenda of eradications and intense ecological restoration efforts towards prior or more desirable ecological regimes. This trajectory often ignores the concept of ecological resilience and associated approaches of resilience-based governance. We argue that the relationship between ecological resilience and invasive species has been understudied to the detriment of attempts to govern invasions, and that most management actions fail, primarily because they do not incorporate adaptive, learning-based approaches. Invasive species can decrease resilience by reducing the biodiversity that underpins ecological functions and processes, making ecosystems more prone to regime shifts. However, invasions do not always result in a shift to an alternative regime; invasions can also increase resilience by introducing novelty, replacing lost ecological functions or adding redundancy that strengthens already existing structures and processes in an ecosystem. This paper examines the potential impacts of species invasions on the resilience of ecosystems and suggests that resilience-based approaches can inform policy by linking the governance of biological invasions to the negotiation of tradeoffs between ecosystem services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil pollution is a serious environmental issue in China. As a key subject of agricultural practices, promoting Chinese farmers' Pro-Environmental Behavior (PEB) through increasing their soil pollution risk perception is an important means for soil protection, agricultural transformation and ecological development. In this study, we distinguish four dimensions of soil pollution risk perception: fact perception (FP), loss perception (LP), cause perception (CP) and response behavior ability perception (RBAP). We conceptualize a model that depicts the relationships between the four dimensions of Chinese farmers' soil pollution risk perception and their PEB and the moderating effect of farms' household income level on these relationships. Using a questionnaire survey to collect empirical data, we find: first, the four dimensions of Chinese farmers' soil pollution risk perception have positive effects on their PEB; second, Chinese farmers' household income level positively moderates the relationships between their FP, LP and CP and their PEB but its moderating effect on the relationship between their RBAP and their PEB is not significant. Relevant theory and policy implications for environmental management are discussed in the paper. • The paper distinguishes four dimensions of farmers' soil pollution risk perception. • Soil pollution risk perception positively influences pro-environmental behavior. • Household income moderates the effects of soil pollution risk perception on PEB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The management of environmental flows is of paramount importance in regulated water resources systems to preserve river ecosystems. This work proposes a methodology to assess habitat alteration in river basins altered by management activities. The methodology is based on the joint application of a basin management model (SIMGES, AQUATOOL) and a model to estimate habitat time series (CAUDECO). CAUDECO is based on the weighted useable areas of the species in their different vital stages that, in turn, depend on the flows in each river stretch and the biological periods of the species. The final output is an indicator of habitat alteration, which is defined ad hoc for this work to relate the habitat suitability under regulated and natural regimes. The methodology was applied to a case study in north-western Spain: the Órbigo River basin. The results in the current management scenario highlight that the ecological flows improve the habitat suitability of several species with respect to natural regime conditions. For instance, the mean values of the habitat time series in the Órbigo River for the brown trout and bermejuela under regulated conditions are 69.6% and 88%; whereas in natural regime they are equal to 55.1% and 72.9%, respectively. Based on these results, eight additional scenarios of ecological flows were tested and their effects on both habitat alteration and water demand reliability were quantified and discussed. It was found that increases in the ecological flows up to 30% do not affect the reliability of water demands and reduce habitat alteration (i.e., lead to values of the habitat alteration indicator closer to 1) for all species present in the river basin. These results highlight that the methodology and indicator of habitat alteration proposed in this paper are useful to support the management of regulated river basins, since they allow assessing the implications of ecological flows on both habitat suitability and reliability of water demands. • A methodology is proposed to assess habitat alteration in regulated basins. • The methodology is applied to the Órbigo River basin (north-western Spain). • Environmental flows can improve habitat suitability compared to natural conditions. • Increases in environmental flows reduce habitat alteration for all species. • Rises in environmental flows up to 30% do not affect the reliability of water demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prominent strands of discussion in the literature on governance for sustainable development debate how change can be induced to enhance sustainability, and how to evaluate the interventions aimed at prompting such change. Strikingly, there are few contributions about how prominent ideas of inducing change deal with multiple governance criteria for pursuing sustainable development. Moreover, the way ideas about inducing change relate to criteria of governance for sustainable development is not yet studied in an empirical context. This paper therefore comparatively analyses how three prominent modes of sustainable development governance – adaptive management, transition management and payments for environmental services – relate to a set of five prominent criteria reported in the literature, namely: equity, democracy, legitimacy, the handling of scale issues and the handling of uncertainty issues. It finds that the academic debates on these three modes address these criteria with varying attention and rather fragmented, while in the empirical setting of the Dutch fen landscape several aspects relating to the studied criteria were present and substantially influenced the functioning of the three modes of sustainable development. Together, the analysis of the literature debate and the empirical data are able to show that a narrow evaluation perspective may fail to diagnose and capture relevant struggles and complexities coming along with governance for sustainable development relevant issues. The study shows that in order to advance our understanding of governance for sustainable development, it is indeed important to include multiple criteria in studying these modes. Moreover, the study shows the importance of including empirical experiences which manifest when different modes for sustainable development are applied in real-world settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The knowledge about potential climate change impacts on forests is continuously expanding and some changes in growth, drought induced mortality and species distribution have been observed. However despite a significant body of research, a knowledge and communication gap exists between scientists and non-scientists as to how climate change impact scenarios can be interpreted and what they imply for European forests. It is still challenging to advise forest decision makers on how best to plan for climate change as many uncertainties and unknowns remain and it is difficult to communicate these to practitioners and other decision makers while retaining emphasis on the importance of planning for adaptation. In this paper, recent developments in climate change observations and projections, observed and projected impacts on European forests and the associated uncertainties are reviewed and synthesised with a view to understanding the implications for forest management. Current impact assessments with simulation models contain several simplifications, which explain the discrepancy between results of many simulation studies and the rapidly increasing body of evidence about already observed changes in forest productivity and species distribution. In simulation models uncertainties tend to cascade onto one another; from estimating what future societies will be like and general circulation models (GCMs) at the global level, down to forest models and forest management at the local level. Individual climate change impact studies should not be uncritically used for decision-making without reflection on possible shortcomings in system understanding, model accuracy and other assumptions made. It is important for decision makers in forest management to realise that they have to take long-lasting management decisions while uncertainty about climate change impacts are still large. We discuss how to communicate about uncertainty – which is imperative for decision making – without diluting the overall message. Considering the range of possible trends and uncertainties in adaptive forest management requires expert knowledge and enhanced efforts for providing science-based decision support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes recent changes to the fire management policy of the 1.9 million ha Kruger National Park in South Africa. It provides a real-life example of adaptive learning in an environment where understanding is incomplete, but where management nonetheless has to proceed. The previous policy called for the application of fire to meet burnt area targets that were set for administrative subdivisions, and that were assessed at the scale of the entire park. This was problematic because the park is large and heterogeneous, and because sound ecological motivations that could link burning prescriptions to ecological objectives were missing. The new policy divides the park into five fire management zones on the basis of differences in mean annual rainfall, historic fire return periods, and geology. In addition, it proposes fire management actions designed to achieve specified ecological objectives in each zone, and includes fire-regime related thresholds and associated ecological outcomes against which to assess the effectiveness of management. The new policy is an improvement over previous iterations, but several challenges remain. Most important among these would be to continually improve the understanding of the effects of fire, and to develop frameworks for assessing the impacts of fire together with other ecosystem drivers that interact strongly with fire to influence the attainment of ecological objectives. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Groundwater is a key resource for global agricultural production but is vulnerable to a changing climate. Given significant uncertainty about future impacts, bottom-up approaches for developing adaptive capacity are a more appropriate paradigm than seeking optimal adaptation strategies that assume a high ability to predict future risks or outcomes. This paper analyses the groundwater management practices adopted at multiple scales in East Anglia, UK, to identify wider lessons for developing adaptive capacity within groundwater management. Key elements are (1) horizontal and vertical integration within resource management; (2) making better use of water resources, at all scales, which vary in space and time; (3) embedding adaptation at multiple scales (from farm to national) within an adaptive management framework which allows strategies and management decisions to be updated in the light of changing understanding or conditions; (4) facilitating the ongoing formation through collective action of local Water Abstractor Groups; (5) promoting efficient use of scarce water resources by these groups, so as to increase their power to negotiate over possible short-term license restrictions; (6) controlling abstractions within a sustainable resource management framework, whether at national (regulatory) or at local (Abstractor Group) scales, that takes account of environmental water needs; and (7) reducing non-climate pressures which have the potential to further reduce the availability of usable groundwater. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Adaptive management is a framework for resource conservation that promotes iterative learning-based decision making. Yet there remains considerable confusion about what adaptive management entails, and how to actually make resource decisions adaptively. A key but somewhat ambiguous distinction in adaptive management is between active and passive forms of adaptive decision making. The objective of this paper is to illustrate some approaches to active and passive adaptive management with a simple example involving the drawdown of water impoundments on a wildlife refuge. The approaches are illustrated for the drawdown example, and contrasted in terms of objectives, costs, and potential learning rates. Some key challenges to the actual practice of AM are discussed, and tradeoffs between implementation costs and long-term benefits are highlighted. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Active adaptive management is the centerpiece of a major species recovery program now underway on the central Platte River in Nebraska. The Platte River Recovery Implementation Program initiated on January 1, 2007 and is a joint effort between the states of Colorado, Wyoming, and Nebraska; the U.S. Department of the Interior; waters users; and conservation groups. This program is intended to address issues related to endangered species and loss of habitat along the Platte River in central Nebraska by managing land and water resources and using adaptive management as its science framework. The adaptive management plan provides a systematic process to test hypotheses and apply the information learned to improve management on the ground, and is centered on conceptual models and priority hypotheses that reflect different interpretations of how river processes work and the best approach to meeting key objectives. This framework reveals a shared attempt to use the best available science to implement experiments, learn, and revise management actions accordingly on the Platte River. This paper focuses on the status of adaptive management implementation on the Platte, experimental and habitat design issues, and the use of decision analysis tools to help set objectives and guide decisions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Adaptive management, an approach for simultaneously managing and learning about natural resources, has been around for several decades. Interest in adaptive decision making has grown steadily over that time, and by now many in natural resources conservation claim that adaptive management is the approach they use in meeting their resource management responsibilities. Yet there remains considerable ambiguity about what adaptive management actually is, and how it is to be implemented by practitioners. The objective of this paper is to present a framework and conditions for adaptive decision making, and discuss some important challenges in its application. Adaptive management is described as a two-phase process of deliberative and iterative phases, which are implemented sequentially over the timeframe of an application. Key elements, processes, and issues in adaptive decision making are highlighted in terms of this framework. Special emphasis is given to the question of geographic scale, the difficulties presented by non-stationarity, and organizational challenges in implementing adaptive management. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Commonly used methods of evaluating the degree of consistency of protected area ecosystems with social and ecological carrying capacities are likely to result in decision errors. This occurs because such methods do not account for imprecision and uncertainty in inferring the degree of ecosystem consistency from an observed ecosystem indicator. This paper proposes a fuzzy adaptive management approach to determine whether a protected area ecosystem is consistent with ecological and social carrying capacities and, if not, to identify management actions that are most likely to achieve consistency when there is uncertainty about the current degree of consistency and how alternative management actions are likely to influence that consistency. The proposed approach is illustrated using a hypothetical example that uses an ecosystem indicator that reflects combinations of different levels of user satisfaction and conservation of threatened and endangered species. Application of the proposed fuzzy adaptive management approach requires a protected area manager to: (1) identify alternative management actions for achieving ecosystem consistency with social and ecological carrying capacities in each of several management zones in a protected area; (2) randomly assign alternative management actions to management zones; (3) define fuzzy sets for the ecosystem indicator and degree of ecosystem consistency, and fuzzy relations between the ecosystem indicator and the degree of ecosystem consistency; (4) monitor the indicator in each management zone; (5) define fuzzy sets based on the observed indicator in each management zone; and (6) combine the fuzzy sets defined on the observed indicator and the fuzzy relations between the indicator and the degree of ecosystem consistency to reach conclusions about the most likely degree of consistency for alternative management actions in each management zone. The fuzzy adaptive management approach proposed here is advantageous when the benefits of avoiding the decision errors inherent with crisp and stochastic decision rules outweigh the added cost of implementing the approach. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this paper, two control laws are proposed and applied in a model for a continuous Microbial Electrochemical Cells system. The used model is based on mass balances describing the behavior of substrate consumption, microbial growth, competition between anodophilic and methanogenic microorganisms for the carbon source in the anode, hydrogen generation, and electrical current production. The main control objective is to improve the electrical current generated and thus the production of bio-hydrogen gas in the reactor, using the dilution rate and the applied potential as individual control input variables. The control laws implemented are nonlinear adaptive type. In order to demonstrate its usefulness, numerical simulation runs involving multiple set-point changes and input perturbations were conducted for each control variable. The results of these simulations show that both control laws were able to respond adequately and efficiently to the disturbances and reach the reference value to which they were subjected. Moreover, it is possible to control both the electrical current produced and the hydrogen produced. Finally, these simulations also show that the highest rate of hydrogen production can be obtained using the applied potential as a control input, but such productivity is only attainable for a short period of time. • Varying Dilution rate and Applied potential can regulate continuous MEC systems. • Used adaptive control approaches are robust against process input perturbations. • Highest hydrogen production is obtained using the potential as control input. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do different multi-level governance models influence the adaptive capacity of environmental management? This paper examines the connection between different types of governance models, distinguished by diverse institutional features, and elements of adaptive capacity. The task is undertaken through a comparative study of two differently organized management systems within the same national context: Swedish water and large carnivore management. The systems' governance models are defined through an institutional analysis of polycentric features, logics of design and knowledge arrangements. Assessments of adaptive capacity are based on survey data describing the involved actors' perceptions of the knowledge base, use of an experimental approach and the presence of learning. The empirical results suggest that institutional features influence some, but not all, elements of adaptive capacity. The results lend support to the idea that polycentric governance models, based on an ecological rationale, sustain participation in knowledge mobilization, support the use of an experimental approach and promote learning to a larger extent than more centralized and hierarchical governance models do; while there is no connection between governance model and the perceived reliability of knowledge base. The study contributes to environmental governance research, policy and practice by evaluating the adaptive capacity of current water and wildlife management systems in Sweden and by increasing our knowledge about how different governance models influence the adaptive capacity in environmental management. • Multi-level governance is introduced to increase adaptive capacity. • Multi-level governance systems diverge in regard to institutional design. • These differences influence some, but not all, elements of adaptive capacity. • Polycentrism, and an ecological rationale, enhance adaptive capacity. • Centralized, and more traditional systems, are less conducive for adaptive capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding how complex urban factors affect the Urban Heat Island (UHI) is crucial for assessing the impacts of urban planning and environmental management on the thermal environment. This paper investigates the relationships between two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) factors and land surface temperatures (LST) within the Olympic Area of Beijing in different seasons, using the boosted regression tree (BRT) model. The BRT model captures the specific contributions of each urban factor to LST in each season and across a continuum of magnitudes for this factor. The results show that these relationships are complex and highly nonlinear. The four most common dominant factors are the Normalized Difference Built-up Index (NDBI), the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), a gravity index for parks (GPI), and average building height (BH). The most important factor in spring is NDBI, with a 45.5% contribution rate. In the other seasons, NDVI is the dominant factor, with contributions of 40% in summer, 21% in autumn, and 19% in winter. NDVI has an overall negative impact on LST in spring and summer, with a quadratic nonlinear decreasing curve, but a positive one in autumn and winter. The 2D land-use variables are most strongly related to LST in summer and spring, but 3D building-related variables have stronger impacts in colder weather. The Sky View Factor (SVF), a 3D measure of urban morphology, has also strong impacts in summer and winter. Both a building-based and a DSM-based SVFs are computed. The latter accounts for buildings, bridges, and trees. In contrast to a building-based SVF, the DSM-based SVF reduces LST when it varies between 0 and 0.75, reflecting the effects of high-density tree canopies that increase shades and evapotranspiration while blocking sky view. The marginal effect curves produced by the BRT are often characterized by thresholds. For instance, the maximal NDVI effect in summer takes place when NDVI = 0.7, suggesting that a very intense green coverage is not necessary to achieve maximal thermal results. Implications for urban planning and environmental management are outlined, including the increased use of evergreen trees that provide thermal benefits in both summer and winter. • Both 2D and 3D urban indicators explain the urban heat island (UHI). • Two measures of the Sky View Factor (SVF) are related to the UHI. • The boosted regression tree model captures factor importance and marginal effects. • The effects of urban factors on the UHI are captured across the different seasons. • Some urban planning implications of the results are outlined for different scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]