The sound management of healthcare waste (HCW) has been receiving increasing global attention, now even more so given the urgency of the COVID-19 pandemic. Uncontrolled fluctuations in generation quantities, the composition of HCW as well as the significant impacts it poses on public health and the environment require a more dynamic and cohesive...
During the twentieth century, the growth of global water consumption was twice the population growth and at this juncture, many comprehensive policy agendas focused on increasing the limited availability of freshwater to meet ever-growing and competing demands. Hence sustainable water consumption has become a primary concern of the building...
This chapter contributes to a comprehensive understanding of the island socio-ecological system by a synthesis of the state and trend of, and the drivers of changes in ecosystems and their services, focusing on mangroves in Ishigaki Island. The current extent of mangroves on the Island is limited to small patches along a few river estuaries, which...
This study’s objective is to examine how ASEAN countries reported their environment-related policies for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in their Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs), and a dataset of their environmental policies was developed. This is a necessary first step in analyzing the reasons for insufficient progress on the...
The sustainable development goals (SDGs) were adopted by the United Nations on 25th September 2015 and are now mid-way to the target implementation deadline of 2030. A set of 17 goals with 169 targets are being used to guide all UN Member States in implementing the challenging 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. From the beginning, it was...
COVID-19 has changed the way we understand risk and vulnerability. The pandemic provides a more in-depth understanding of how systemic risks work and how they affect lives, livelihoods and economies at a broader scale. Consequently, a range of impacts was observed, including loss of human health, livelihoods, loss of general wellbeing, protracted...
While the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) are broadly framed with 17 goals, the goals and their targets inherently
connect with each other forming a complex system. Actions supporting one goal may influence progress in other goals,
either positively (synergies) or negatively (trade-offs). Effective managing the synergies and trade-offs is a...
Mitigation solutions are often evaluated in terms of costs and greenhouse gas reduction potentials, missing out on the consideration of direct effects on human well-being. Here, we systematically assess the mitigation potential of demand-side options categorized into avoid, shift and improve, and their human well-being links. We show that these...
Our longing for incessant and rapid economic growth came at a cost of inefficient and wasteful use of resources and environmental pollution. The consequences are immense and far exceeding the planetary capacities to regenerate itself at such a fast pace. It became clear that a transition to sustainable societies cannot occur with our current linear...
This chapter identifies significant transformations in agricultural land in terms of land use and land-use changes, analyses major drivers and trade-offs, and describes substantial policy interventions to arrest negative trends. The rapidly growing population and their needs constitute one of the significant drivers of land-use changes in the Asia...