Tropical peat swamp is an essential ecosystem experiencing increased degradation over the past few decades. Therefore, this study used the social-ecological system (SES) perspective to explain the complex relationship between humans and nature in the Sumatran Peatlands Biosphere Reserve. The peat swamp forest has experienced a significant decline, followed by a significant increase in oil palm and forest plantations in areas designated for peat protection. Human systems have evolved to become complex and hierarchical, constituting individuals, groups, organizations, and institutions. Studies on SES conducted in the tropical peatlands of Asia have yet to address the co-evolutionary processes occurring in this region, which could illustrate the dynamic relationship between humans and nature. This study highlights the co-evolutionary processes occurring in the tropical peatland biosphere reserve and provides insights into their sustainability trajectory. Moreover, the coevolution process shows that biosphere reserve is shifting toward an unsustainable path. This is indicated by ongoing degradation in three zones and a lack of a comprehensive framework for landscape-scale water management. Implementing landscape-scale water management is essential to sustain the capacity of peatlands social-ecological systems facing disturbances, and it is important to maintain biodiversity. In addition, exploring alternative development pathways can help alter these trajectories toward sustainability.
The electoral campaign that led Trump to win the presidential election focused on attacking the elites and using nationalist rhetoric, highlighting issues such as illegal immigration and economic globalization. Once in power, his trade policies, based on perceptions of unfair competition with countries like China, resulted in the imposition of high tariffs on key products. These measures were justified as necessary to protect domestic industries and jobs, although they triggered trade wars at the international level. This article examines the economic consequences of the protectionist policies implemented by the United States under the Trump administration. The protection of less competitive sectors aims to reduce imports, negatively affecting production and income in exporting countries, and limiting U.S. exports to these markets. Although some countries have experienced an increase in real income due to trade diversion, overall, income fluctuations have been negative.
This study applies machine learning methods such as Decision Tree (CART) and Random Forest to classify drought intensity based on meteorological data. The goal of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of these methods for drought classification and their use in water resource management and agriculture. The methodology involved using two machine learning models that analyzed temperature and humidity indicators, as well as wind speed indicators. The models were trained and tested on real meteorological data to assess their accuracy and identify key factors affecting predictions. Results showed that the Random Forest model achieved the highest accuracy of 94.4% when analyzing temperature and humidity indicators, while the Decision Tree (CART) achieved an accuracy of 93.2%. When analyzing wind speed indicators, the models’ accuracies were 91.3% and 93.0%, respectively. Feature importance revealed that atmospheric pressure, temperature at 2 m, and wind speed are key factors influencing drought intensity. One of the study’s limitations was the insufficient amount of data for high drought levels (classes 4 and 5), indicating the need for further data collection. The innovation of this study lies in the integration of various meteorological parameters to build drought classification models, achieving high prediction accuracy. Unlike previous studies, our approach demonstrates that using a wide range of meteorological data can significantly improve drought classification accuracy. Significant findings include the necessity to expand the dataset and integrate additional climatic parameters to improve models and enhance their reliability.
The objective of this study is to explore the relationship between changing weather conditions and tourism demand in Thailand across five selected provinces: Chonburi (Pattaya), Surat Thani, Phuket, Chiang Mai, and Bangkok. The annual data used in this study from 2012 to 2022. The estimation method is threshold regression (TR). The results indicate that weather conditions proxied by the Temperature Humidity Index (THI) significantly affect tourism demand in these five provinces. Specifically, changes in weather conditions, such as an increase in temperature, generally result in a decrease in tourism demand. However, the impact of weather conditions varies according to each province’s unique characteristics or highlights. For example, tourism demand in Bangkok is not significantly affected by weather conditions. In contrast, provinces that rely heavily on maritime tourism, such as Chonburi (Pattaya), Phuket, and Surat Thani, are notably affected by weather conditions. When the THI in each province rises beyond a certain threshold, the demand for tourism in these provinces by foreign tourists decreases significantly. Furthermore, economic factors, particularly tourists’ income, significantly impact tourism demand. An increase in the income of foreign tourists is associated with a decrease in tourism in Pattaya. This trend possibly occurs because higher-income tourists tend to upgrade their travel destinations from Pattaya to more upscale locations such as Phuket or Surat Thani. For Thai tourists, an increase in income leads to a decrease in domestic tourism, as higher incomes enable more frequent international travel, thereby reducing tourism in the five provinces. Additionally, the study found that the availability and convenience of accommodation and food services are critical factors influencing tourism demand in all the provinces studied.
This study investigated the changing land use patterns and their impacts on ecosystem in the Teesta River Basin of northwestern Bangladesh. Although anthropocentric land use patterns, including agricultural land use, settlements, built areas, and waterbody loss, have been increasing in the Nilphamari district, by negatively affecting local ecosystems, they have not been identified by prior research. Limitations of contemporary literature motivated me to work on this crucial ground in the Teesta River Basin in Northwestern Bangladesh. This study applied a mixed research approach to identify the study objectives. Firstly, the land use and land cover (LULC) changes which occurred between 2000 and 2020 were detected using satellite imagery and supervised classification method. In addition to the detection of LULC changes, the study explored the people’s perceptions and experiences about the ecosystem changes resulted from the LULC changes over the last 20 years, conducting stakeholders’ consultations and household surveys utilizing a semi-structured questionnaire. The findings indicated that waterbodies in Nilphamari district have significantly decreased from 378 km2 in 2000 to 181 km2 in 2020. In the same way, the vegetation coverage has reduced 187 km2 between the years 2000 and 2020. On the contrary, agricultural lands (croplands) have increased from 595 km2 to 905 km2 and settlements have increased from 81 km2 to 206 km2 between the years 2000 and 2020. From the chi-square test, it was found a significant association between ecosystem change and biodiversity loss. It was further identified that waterbody decreases have significant impacts on aquatic ecosystems. The results of this study also indicated that due to the introduction of foreign tree species, local and native species have been significantly decreasing over the time. This study emphasizes the non-anthropocentric and inclusive land use policy implications for protecting life on land and preserving the aquatic ecosystem in Bangladesh.
The creation of points where law, politics and education policies take intersection is a very complex and dynamic environment determined by philosophical shifts, economic problems, and social dynamics. This study dissects various complicated challenges facing the process of the framing of educational policies and their implementation which have become rampant due to the rapid political transformations. The researched evaluation is applied via both qualitative and quantitative methods, including juridical research, case and best practices studies and surveys, with the descriptive nature of the research as the main tool. The heart of the essay is three main themes - the contention between the rigidity of the academic standards and the holistic growth of students, its possible effects when students are too identified with a test-centric approach as their knowledge is sacrificed for their test scores, and the inclusion of rights and protections for underrepresented populations even when faced with a government’s resistance. Similarly, the research examines the perils of creating legislation too quickly, especially, because of unexpected side effects and interpretation conflicts. Findings show profound demographic differentials over districts which implies the designing and implementation of policies need to be modified accordingly. Unless a certain policy brings the best outcomes in the learning process, then nobody should choose it even if it means disrupting student well-being and decreasing their involvement. It is also emblematic of how cross-party cooperation and stakeholders’ understanding are important aspects of fairly dealing with complicated policy environments.
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