Land degradation and desertification have become complex environmental, social, and economic concerns in Ghana owing to decline in agricultural productivity, loss of biodiversity, and forced out-migration from degraded lands to cities in search of jobs or to rural forested communities for farming, resulting in further deforestation. In an attempt to address these complex land degradation and desertification problems, particularly in the northern areas of Ghana, land degradation was assessed in six major ecological zones of Sudan savanna, Guinea savanna, forest transition, moist semi-deciduous forest, evergreen forest, and coastal savanna. The objectives of the assessment were to: (a) analyze current satellite images to document land degradation, (b) model trends of land degradation, and (c) create a desertification hazard map for Ghana. Land degradation was modeled by using ArcGIS 9.3; satellite image analysis was conducted by using ERDAS Imagine software. Land degradation indicator data layers were soil, vegetation, climate, and land management data. The Modified Mediterranean Desertification and Land Use Model was adapted to model desertification and land degradation, which resulted in the production of a land degradation risk map for Ghana. In addition to the modeling, satellite image based land cover classification results from 2000 to 2008 showed evidence of approximately 880.006 sq km of land degradation in Ghana.

Environmental Practice 17: 3–15 (2015)

Urban health is strongly linked to mental illness, being overweight, smoking behaviors, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and coronary disease; most of these are chronic diseases/conditions. Healthy Cities and Cittaslow are urban initiatives that acknowledge the importance of such societal and cultural contexts and factors as social determinants of health, whereas the more commonly considered factors such as access and use of health care services often have less impact. Changes in social environment and lifestyle are now major determinants of risk and disease at all ages. Based on the principles of Healthy Cities and Cittaslow, this research aimed to establish comparisons and formulate plausible hypotheses for the relationship between healthy cities and chronic diseases/conditions. It is a qualitative observational and comparative study from a socio-anthropological perspective carried out in five cities. Improved capacity of local communities to identify and address problems could be the best outcome from Healthy Cities and Cittaslow. The capacity to change urban environments and social habits to ones that promote a healthier lifestyle may help to lessen the impact of chronic diseases/conditions.

Environmental Practice 17: 16–24 (2015)

The future of the American West depends on sustainable water resource governance. A variety of uncertainties associated with limited freshwater supplies, population growth, land use change, drought, and climate change impacts present substantial challenges. To inform decision making, managers are adopting new techniques such as scenario planning to understand how water resources might change and what practices can support economic, environmental, and social sustainability. Scenario planning can be informed by understanding the normative future preferences of a variety of stakeholders, including decision makers, who influence water governance. This article presents a survey of central Arizona decision makers to understand their visions for a desirable future for the water system in terms of supply, delivery, demand, outflow, and crosscutting activities. Principle components analysis is used to identify patterns underlying responses about preferences for each domain of the system and correlation analysis is used to evaluate associations between themes across the domains. The results reveal two distinct visions for water in central Arizona—one in which water experts and policy makers pursue supply augmentation to serve metropolitan development, and another in which broadened public engagement is used in conjunction with policy tools to reduce water consumption, restore ecosystem services, and limit metropolitan expansion. The results of this survey will inform the development of a set of normative scenarios for use in exploratory modeling and anticipatory governance activities.

Environmental Practice 17: 25–35 (2015)

Upon its enactment, the United States’s National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) established a national policy for promoting the protection and enhancement of the human environment. NEPA sets forth procedural requirements for federal agencies to prepare Environmental Impact Statements (EISs) for any major federal actions that may impact the environment. At the core of these environmental documents is the dominant Western worldview of scientific materialism. In many instances, NEPA’s sole reliance on a Western scientific materialist evaluation of environmental impacts fails to consider and incorporate Native American perspectives of, values about, and relationships with the environment. For example, many Native American Tribes perceive the environment through an animistic ontological lens that embodies a sense of stewardship, manifest through a spiritual, umbilical connectedness to the natural world. Thus, Native American perceptions of the environment often clash with the dominant Western culture’s scientific perspectives, especially as they relate to determining environmental impacts. This conflict of cultural worldviews intensifies when compliance with other federal laws is coupled with the NEPA process. This article examines the effects of employing solely a Western scientific perspective in assessing environmental impacts on indigenous communities through the NEPA process and how this can have the unintended consequence of promoting the perpetuation of colonialist attitudes toward Native peoples. It will also discuss how taking into consideration Native American worldviews can offer more affirmative and inclusive environmental practices associated with the NEPA process.

Environmental Practice 17: 36–45 (2015)

The United States (US) Army Corps of Engineers and US Environmental Protection Agency share responsibility for regulating placement of fill material in coastal wetlands and open waters. However, achieving the goal of no net wetland loss has been difficult, particularly in urban regions where development pressures and environmental conditions have exacerbated wetland losses. Despite protections provided in the Clean Water Act, one significant wetland category is threatened by adherence to the rules regarding no discharge of fill: low-lying coastal wetlands subject to the effects of a changing climate, including rising sea level, higher storm surges, and flooding. Without inland migration or accretion of new sediments, coastal wetlands will be lost unless marsh surface elevations are raised. The northeastern US coastline is a hot spot that may be especially vulnerable to sea-level rise. To explore current restoration policy, three case studies were examined: Jamaica Bay, New York, disappearing marshes; Jersey City, New Jersey, Lincoln Park West marsh; and Kane Wetland Mitigation Bank in the New Jersey Meadowlands District. Questions related to projected sea-level rise, ecological topography and adjacencies, or the potential for extreme storm events and surges were not addressed in the designs of these recent restorations. Although placement of fill materials in wetlands, marshes, or open water can create unanticipated consequences, if there is stringent regulatory oversight and a transparent public process, allowing placement of fill to preserve coastal wetlands could increase coastal resiliency. We suggest that the greater danger is failing to acknowledge the predicted effects of a changing climate. Permitting decisions must take into account broader geographic areas, expanded time frames, and projected effects of climate change.

Environmental Practice 17: 46–56 (2015)

Many factors must be considered by environmental officials tasked with managing pesticides. Several socioeconomic analysis techniques can be used to quantify these issues and help improve management, including the full consideration of alternatives. The most popular and commonly used techniques are Cost-Benefit Analysis and Cost-Effectiveness Analysis, and additional guidance and reference materials are readily available. Another group of methods, known as Rapid Rural Appraisal and Participatory Rural Appraisal, can be more appropriate, faster, and have lower cost to use in developing countries. Finally, qualitative decision making under uncertainty, such as through the use of the Precautionary Principle (not a socioeconomic analysis technique), also can be valuable. The precautionary approach requires that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is not harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking an action. Ideally all of the analytical techniques will need complete and reliable socioeconomic data, though in reality, data are often incomplete and fraught with uncertainties. In these cases, the application of the precautionary principle decision rule may have strong justification. The application of these techniques in several decision contexts for pesticides in developing countries will be discussed.

Environmental Practice 17: 57–68 (2015)

The Eva Aetas are custodians of a degraded upland environment in Sitio Pita Bayan-bayanan, a small community in the town of Orion, Bataan, the Philippines. Having lived there for seven decades, they have watched their ancestral land decay from a lush forest to barren grassland. Acknowledging the fact that they have played an active role in its degradation, the Eva Aetas have transformed their environmental practices to adapt to their situation. From crop choice to harvesting methods and ethnomedicine, they provide various means to maximize the minimal outputs of grasslands and possibly allow its eventual rehabilitation. The use of development communication and the application of relevant local policies provide the means as to how their current situation could be remedied.

Environmental Practice 17: 69–77 (2015)