Download or read book Systems Analysis Approach for Complex Global Challenges written by Priscilla Mensah and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-04-09 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, which contains a collection of review articles as well as focus on evidence-based policy making, will serve as a valuable resource not just for all postgraduate students conducting research using systems analysis thinking but also for policy makers. To our knowledge, a book of this nature which also has a strong African focus is currently not available. The book examines environmental and socio-economic risks with the aim of providing an analytical foundation for the management and governance of natural resources, disasters, addressing climate change, and easing the technological and ecological transitions to sustainability. It provides scientific and strategic analysis to better understand the dynamics of future energy transitions, their main driving forces, enabling factors, barriers, as well as their consequences for the social, economic and environmental dimensions of human wellbeing. Science-based policy advice is achieved through an integrated assessment and modeling of how to simultaneously address the major energy policy challenges in the areas of environment (climate change and air pollution), energy poverty (or access to affordable and clean energy for the poor), energy security and reliability. It also aims to improve our understanding of ecosystems and their management in today’s changing world—in particular, the current state of ecosystems, and their ecological thresholds and buffering capacities. It provides support for policy makers in developing rational, realistic and science-based regional, national and global strategies for the production of fuel, food and fibre that sustain ecosystem services and safeguard food security. Finally, it addresses the human development dimension of global change based on comprehensive studies on the changing size and composition of human populations around the world by analyzing both their impacts and the differential vulnerabilities by age, gender and level of education.

Download or read book New Approaches to Economic Challenges Systemic Thinking for Policy Making The Potential of Systems Analysis for Addressing Global Policy Challenges in the 21st Century written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2020-02-27 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Systemic Thinking for Policy Making world experts from the OECD and International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) pool their expertise and experience to propose new approaches to analysing the interconnected trends and issues shaping today’s and tomorrow’s world.

Download or read book Water Challenges in Rural and Urban Sub Saharan Africa and their Management written by Joan Nyika and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-04-20 with total page 117 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sub-Saharan Africa grapples with many public health issues such as food insecurity, increased prevalence of infectious diseases, limited access to clean water supply, poor nutrition and lack of improved health services for its populace (IMF, 2021). Of all these challenges, the inaccessibility of clean water supply for both the rural and urban populace is the most pressing challenge, which has been exacerbated by extensive pollution and climate change crises. The issue of water access and supply affects both rural and urban populations. At rural areas water is accessed in yard taps and in arid regions through water kiosks managed by private owners. Among the urban poor, water access is compromised by poor supply infrastructure especially among informal settlers and risks such as contamination during the supply chain are imminent This book therefore seeks to close this knowledge gap by 1) generating a water resources inventory for Sub-Saharan Africa region, 2) exploring the water crises in both its urban and rural settings, 3) understanding the causatives of the crises and 4) suggesting viable solutions to manage the water challenges using named case studies. The aim is to improve understanding on the region’s water problems and advise scholars and policymakers on priority research areas and action plans to better water management for sustainable development.

Download or read book Reflections on African Cities in Transition written by Purshottama Sivanarain Reddy and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume describes African cities in transition, and the economic, socio-political, and environmental challenges resulting from rapid post-colonial urbanization. As the African continent continues to transition from urban configurations inherited from colonial influences and history, it faces issues such as urban slum expansion, increased demands for energy and clean water, lack of adequate public transportation, high levels of inequality among different socio-economic population strata, and inadequate urban governance, planning, and policies. African cities in transition need to reconsider current policies and developmental trajectories to facilitate and sustain economic growth and Africa’s strategic repositioning in the world. Written by an international team of scholars and practitioners, this volume uses case studies to focus on key issues and developmental challenges in selected African cities. Topics include but are not limited to, smart cities, changing notions of democracy, the city’s role in attaining the SDGs, local governance, alternative models for governance and management, corruption, urbanisation and future cities.

Download or read book Handbook of Research on Globalized Agricultural Trade and New Challenges for Food Security written by Erokhin, Vasilii and published by IGI Global. This book was released on 2019-10-25 with total page 574 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Free trade promotes economic growth through international competition and the efficient allocation of resources while also helping to stabilize food supplies between countries that have an overabundance of product and countries that have a shortage. However, sudden price surges can threaten the social cohesion of developing countries and may lead to malnutrition and stunted growth. Balancing trade liberalization and protectionism is imperative for the provision of food security for all. The Handbook of Research on Globalized Agricultural Trade and New Challenges for Food Security is an essential publication that seeks to improve food security, food independence, and food sovereignty in the conditions of globalized agricultural trade and addresses the contemporary issues of agricultural trade including major commodities and food products traded between major countries, directions of trade, and trends. The book also examines the effects of tariff escalations, administrative restrictions, other forms of trade protectionism on food security, and the emerging trade tensions between major actors such as the US, China, the EU, and Russia. Featuring research on topics including plant fertility, dietary diversity, and protectionism, this book is ideally designed for government officials, policymakers, agribusiness managers, stakeholders, international tradesmen, researchers, industry professionals, academicians, and students.

Download or read book 15th WCEAM Proceedings written by João Onofre Pereira Pinto and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-03-24 with total page 486 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book gathers selected peer-reviewed papers from the 15th World Congress on Engineering Asset Management (WCEAM), which was hosted by The Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul Campo Grande, Brazil, from 15–-18 August 2021 This book covers a wide range of topics in engineering asset management, including: strategy and standards; sustainability and resiliency; servitisation and Industry 4.0 business models; asset information systems; and asset management decision-making. The breadth and depth of these state-of-the-art, comprehensive proceedings make them an excellent resource for asset management practitioners, researchers, and academics, as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Download or read book Proceedings of the FAO Global Conference on Sustainable Plant Production written by Telemans, B. and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2023-06-13 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: FAO organized its first ever Global Conference on Sustainable Plant Production (GPC) (Rome, 2 to 4 November 2022), with a focus on Innovation, Efficiency and Resilience. Its main objective was to provide a neutral forum for FAO Members, farmers, scientists, development agencies, policy makers, extensionists, civil society, opinion leaders and the private sector to engage in dialogues around sustainable plant production. To achieve impact towards implementing the 2030 Agenda, the GPC developed 20 actionable recommendations. The recommendations encompass all the thematic areas highlighted in the GPC, with a focus on adaptation to local contexts, needs of small-scale farmers, and include cross-cutting issues to guide active innovation for global sustainable plant production systems. The recommendations clearly establish (i) priorities for targeted mobilization and pooling of scientific, technical and financial resources; (ii) evidence and knowledge sharing through the creation and management of functional technical networks; and (iii) testing and scaling evidence-based sustainable plant production practices, partnerships and policies.

Download or read book Power Shift written by Peter Newell and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-15 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A novel, interdisciplinary account of the global politics of producing, financing, governing and mobilising energy system transformation.

Download or read book Urban Ethics as Research Agenda written by Raúl Acosta and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-07-13 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an outline for a multidisciplinary research agenda into urban ethics and offers insights into the various ways urban ethics can be configured. It explores practices and discourses through which individuals, collectives and institutions determine which developments and projects may be favourable for dwellers and visitors traversing cities. Urban Ethics as Research Agenda widens the lens to include other actors apart from powerful individuals or institutions, paying special attention to activists or civil society organizations that express concerns about collective life. The chapters provide fresh perspectives addressing the various scales that converge in the urban. The uniqueness of each city is, thus, enriched with global patterns of the urban. Local sociocultural characteristics coexist with global flows of ideas, goods and people. The focus on urban ethics sheds light on emerging spaces of human development and the ways in which ethical narratives are used to mobilize and contest them in terms of the good life. This timely book analyses urban ethical negotiations from social and cultural studies, particularly drawing on anthropology, geography and history. This volume will be of interest to scholars, researchers and practitioners interested in ethics and urban studies.

Download or read book Agricultural development New perspectives in a changing world written by Otsuka, Keijiro, ed. and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2021-01-14 with total page 798 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Agricultural Development: New Perspectives in a Changing World is the first comprehensive exploration of key emerging issues facing developing-country agriculture today, from rapid urbanization to rural transformation to climate change. In this four-part volume, top experts offer the latest research in the field of agricultural development. Using new lenses to examine today’s biggest challenges, contributors address topics such as nutrition and health, gender and household decision-making, agrifood value chains, natural resource management, and political economy. The book also covers most developing regions, providing a critical global perspective at a time when many pressing challenges extend beyond national borders. Tying all this together, Agricultural Development explores policy options and strategies for developing sustainable agriculture and reducing food insecurity and malnutrition. The changing global landscape combined with new and better data, technologies, and understanding means that agriculture can and must contribute to a wider range of development outcomes than ever before, including reducing poverty, ensuring adequate nutrition, creating strong food value chains, improving environmental sustainability, and promoting gender equity and equality. Agricultural Development: New Perspectives in a Changing World, with its unprecedented breadth and scope, will be an indispensable resource for the next generation of policymakers, researchers, and students dedicated to improving agriculture for global wellbeing.

Download or read book Ecological and Evolutionary Modelling written by Cang Hui and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-06-18 with total page 86 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ecology studies biodiversity in its variety and complexity. It describes how species distribute and perform in response to environmental changes. Ecological processes and structures are highly complex and adaptive. In order to quantify emerging ecological patterns and investigate their hidden mechanisms, we need to rely on the simplicity of mathematical language. Ecological patterns are emerging structures observed in populations, communities and ecosystems. Elucidating drivers behind ecological patterns can greatly improve our knowledge of how ecosystems assemble, function and respond to change and perturbation. Mathematical ecology has, thus, become an important interdisciplinary research field that can provide answers to complex global issues, such as climate change and biological invasions. The aim of this book is to (i) introduce key concepts in ecology and evolution, (ii) explain classic and recent important mathematical models for investigating ecological and evolutionary dynamics, and (iii) provide real examples in ecology/biology/environmental sciences that have used these models to address relevant issues. Readers are exposed to the key concepts, frameworks, and terminology in the studies of ecology and evolution, which will enable them to ask the correct and relevant research questions, and frame the questions using appropriate mathematical models.

Download or read book Enabling AI Applications in Data Science written by Aboul-Ella Hassanien and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-09-23 with total page 644 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a detailed overview of the latest developments and applications in the field of artificial intelligence and data science. AI applications have achieved great accuracy and performance with the help of developments in data processing and storage. It has also gained strength through the amount and quality of data which is the main nucleus of data science. This book aims to provide the latest research findings in the field of artificial intelligence with data science.

Download or read book Water the Environment and the Sustainable Development Goals written by Mohammad Hadi Dehghani and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2023-11-16 with total page 501 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Water, the Environment and the Sustainable Development Goals details the availability of water resources on Earth in the context of sustainable resource management, how these water resources are utilized and the latest sustainable techniques in water resource management. Along with the latest techniques, each chapter discusses future challenges and opportunities in sustainability and provides detailed case studies. Sections cover water quality, water pollution, water borne diseases, water purification, transboundary waters, water and energy, water and the green economy, water cooperation, water scarcity, and the relationship between water environments and sustainable development goals. Comprehensively covers water resources on Earth and their relation to the UN Sustainable Development Goals Covers a wide range of promising approaches for water resource management Provides case studies to further elucidate the progress made towards the SDGs and the latest developments in sustainable techniques

Download or read book Global Challenges Governance and Complexity written by Victor Galaz and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2019-12-27 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is an increased interest in integrating insights from the complexity sciences to studies of governance and policy. While the issue has been debated, and the term of ‘complexity’ has multiple and sometimes contested interpretations, it is also clear the field has spurred a number of interesting theoretical and empirical efforts. The book includes key thinkers in the field, elaborates on different analytical approaches in studying governance, institutions and policy in the face of complexity, and showcases empirical applications and insights.

Download or read book Systems Research for Real World Challenges written by Stowell, Frank and published by IGI Global. This book was released on 2018-06-01 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a complex and changing world, current scientific approaches to problem solving have drastically evolved to include complexity models and emerging systems. Breaking problems into the smallest component and examining its position inside a system allows for a more regulated and measured technique in investigation, discovery, and providing solutions. Systems Research for Real-World Challenges is an essential reference source that explores the development of systems philosophy, theory, practice, its models, concepts, and methodologies developed as an aid for improving decision making and problem solving for the benefit of organizations and society as a whole. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as complexity models, management systems, and economic policy, this book is ideally designed for scientists, policy makers, researchers, managers, and systematists seeking current research on the benefits and approaches of problem solving within the realm of systems thinking and practice.

Download or read book Handbook of Research on Modeling Analysis and Control of Complex Systems written by Azar, Ahmad Taher and published by IGI Global. This book was released on 2020-12-05 with total page 685 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The current literature on dynamic systems is quite comprehensive, and system theory’s mathematical jargon can remain quite complicated. Thus, there is a need for a compendium of accessible research that involves the broad range of fields that dynamic systems can cover, including engineering, life sciences, and the environment, and which can connect researchers in these fields. The Handbook of Research on Modeling, Analysis, and Control of Complex Systems is a comprehensive reference book that describes the recent developments in a wide range of areas including the modeling, analysis, and control of dynamic systems, as well as explores related applications. The book acts as a forum for researchers seeking to understand the latest theory findings and software problem experiments. Covering topics that include chaotic maps, predictive modeling, random bit generation, and software bug prediction, this book is ideal for professionals, academicians, researchers, and students in the fields of electrical engineering, computer science, control engineering, robotics, power systems, and biomedical engineering.

Download or read book Shifting Patterns of Agricultural Trade written by Vasilii Erokhin and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-08-06 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a pivotal publication that seeks to improve food security in the conditions of escalating protectionism in global agricultural trade. The authors argue that global trade systems have been increasingly distorted by emerging trade tensions between major actors such as the US, China, the EU, and Russia, as well as trade policies in many other countries. In view of the most recent disruption of global food supply chains due to the outbreak of the COVID-19, the book examines the effects of administrative restrictions, tariff escalations, and other forms of protectionism on food security. Over the decades, food security concerns have been emerging, along with the growth of the world population. More than two billion most impoverished people in the world spent up to 70% of their disposable income on food. In 2020, the running pandemic has unraveled accumulated problems. As many countries rely on agricultural imports, lockdowns and disrupted food production and supply chains tremendously threaten food security of those nations. Agricultural trade was already slowing in 2019 before the virus struck, weighed down by trade tensions, and decelerating economic growth. The spread of the virus and strict quarantine measures trigger economic decline that results in food prices rises and volatilities. Due to the pandemic, nearly all regions will suffer double-digit decline in trade volumes 2020. The virus will be defeated, but the effects of the protectionism outbreak would have a much longer-lasting impact on agricultural production, international supply chains, and food security worldwide. In this publication, the authors probe into many of the choices that link national, regional, and global policies extensively with the provision of food security for all in the new era of post-virus global trade. Since studying global agricultural trade has a multinational application, its outcomes might be shared with a broad international network of stakeholders, including research institutions, universities, and individual researches. The book is appropriate for government officials, policymakers, and businesses of many countries. Adaptation of research outcomes and solutions to the situation in particular countries and various collaboration formats will let to increase the visibility of the publication and to elaborate new practices and solutions in the sphere of establishing sustainable food security.