Artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) provides important livelihood opportunities in rural Africa but generates substantial environmental pressures, particularly where mining intensification and technological change occur under weak regulatory capacity. While previous studies in Cameroon have documented specific environmental and health consequences of artisanal mining, limited quantitative evidence exists on how mining intensity, production technologies, socioeconomic dependence, and environmental governance jointly shape perceived environmental degradation across heterogeneous mining territories. This study examines these relationships using primary survey data from 650 respondents across the main gold-mining areas of Eastern Cameroon, complemented by direct site observations and semi-structured interviews with institutional and community stakeholders. A multidimensional index of perceived environmental degradation is constructed from eight dimensions, including deforestation, soil degradation, water pollution, erosion, abandoned mining pits, destruction of agricultural land, biodiversity loss, and landscape degradation. The index demonstrates satisfactory internal consistency (Cronbach’s α =0.84 ), while the first principal component explains approximately 60.3 β̂=0.284 , p < 0.01 ). Semi-mechanised techniques ( β̂=0.173 , p < 0.01 ), chemical use ( β̂=0.146 , p < 0.01 ), proximity to waterways ( β̂=0.118 , p < 0.01 ), weak environmental governance ( β̂=0.201 , p < 0.01 ), and economic dependence on gold mining ( β̂=0.133 , p < 0.01 ) are also positively associated with higher degradation scores, whereas education is negatively associated with them ( β̂=-0.092 , p < 0.01 ). These findings shift attention from whether artisanal gold mining generates environmental pressures to the technological, institutional, and socioeconomic conditions under which these pressures are perceived to intensify. The study therefore highlights the need for territorially differentiated environmental governance, stronger regulation of semi-mechanised operations and chemical use, enhanced protection of waterways, and livelihood diversification in mining-dependent communities.
Under the pressures of climate change, floods and droughts are increasingly challenging global water systems, requiring transformative approaches for the integrated and adaptive management of water-resilient river landscapes. Enhancing landscape “sponge functioning”, the capacity to intercept, retain, store, and release water, is increasingly promoted, yet guidance remains fragmented between local measures and landscape-scale strategies, limiting the coordinated prioritization and implementation of water-retention interventions. This paper proposes a Procedural Learning Framework to support the co-creation of sponge measures and strategies across spatial levels. It was developed through a scoping review of process-oriented implementation frameworks and action-oriented research with stakeholder knowledge in the Horizon Europe Innovation Action project SpongeWorks. The framework includes four transformation principles: shared system understanding, multi-scale transitions, co-creation, and learning and reflexivity. It operationalizes them into interconnected building blocks for strategies and measures, and introduces guiding questions to support collaborative learning. By aligning actions across spatial levels and temporal scales, the Procedural Learning Framework contributes to more coherent and adaptive planning efforts, addressing complex social-ecological-technical challenges and advancing the integrated management of water-resilient landscapes as a transferable decision-support approach for environmental management in the EU and beyond.
Identifying and preserving groundwater recharge potential zones (GWRPZs) is essential for integrating water security into territorial planning. While maintaining high recharge potential theoretically supports subsurface water storage and landscape resilience against extreme weather events, long-term spatial evaluations of how land-use policies preserve these functions remain limited. Despite the abundance of water resources in Brazil, insufficient coordination between land-use planning and groundwater management compromises water security. There is a knowledge gap regarding long-term spatial-temporal evaluations of how territorial policies, rather than land use alone, affect the maintenance of groundwater recharge potential. This study addresses this gap by assessing the impact of territorial policies on aquifer recharge potential over time. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the need for territorial policies governing freshwater management to support long-term water security. This study examined a volcanic plateau in southern Brazil to illustrate a framework. Using a GIS approach, this paper established a method for evaluating GWRPZ changes between 1985 and 2022 and compared these changes with territories under different land-use restrictions. The resulting GWRPZ change map showed areas where recharge potential had improved and others where it had been reduced between 1985 and 2022. Higher GWRPZ maintenance was associated with a higher degree of area protection. Agriculture was identified as the main pressure on GWRPZs, whereas the main resistance was forest recovery. These data can help inform policy decision-making to identify more applicable and appropriate solutions for sustainable development.
Soil pollution in the EU and Germany is a pressing environmental issue. Multiple stressors contribute to soil pollution, including the use of plant protection products (here: pesticides). Policy goals, however, demand that the EU and Germany protect biodiversity and soils. Against this background, the present article adopts a qualitative governance analysis to investigate the extent to which German pesticide policies contribute to reduced pesticide pollution risks as well as biodiversity and soil health goals. Results indicate that (1) pesticide use requirements have a very limited steering effect on reducing pesticide pollution risks because they lack precision and enforceability, (2) pesticide spatial measures suffer from enforcement and control issues, an extensive exception regime and poorly implemented restrictions. (3) Overarching soil and nature conservation policies are largely ineffective as pesticide policies (lex specialis) override overarching policies. Still, certain policy elements such as training and certification, as well as the expansion of water protection areas contribute to some extent to reduced pesticide pollution risks, biodiversity and soil health. These results indicate that effective soil protection not only requires incremental changes in existing policies but comprehensive amendments to the agricultural sector including the adoption of economic instruments and measures from the global to the local level.
Agricultural sustainability in closed endorheic basins is constrained by periodic water scarcity, hydrological isolation, and the cumulative effects of intensive land use. The Cuauhtémoc region of northern Mexico hosts long-established Mennonite farming communities whose mechanized and irrigation-dependent agriculture constitutes an important component of the regional economy and resource-use system. This study examined the prevalence, diversity, and drivers of sustainable agricultural practices among 95 Mennonite farmers in the Bustillos Lagoon region. Thirteen practices spanning soil and residue management, water conservation, biological soil-fertility management, and agrochemical stewardship were assessed, while a conservation-practice breadth indicator quantified the number of ten resource-management practices used by individual farmers. Among 92 farmers with complete practice data, conservation-practice breadth ranged from 2 to 8 practices (mean = 3.76 ± 1.06). Residue incorporation (98.9
