Browsing by Author "Ambrina Sardar Khan , Prateek Srivastava"

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Bridging the Gap Between Environmental Justice and Ecosystem Management: A Comprehensive Framework for Equitable Sustainability
(Springer, Singapore, 2025) Ambrina Sardar Khan , Prateek Srivastava
Environmental justice (EJ) emphasizes the fair distribution of environmental benefits and burdens, ensuring that all individuals, regardless of race, income, or social status, have access to clean air, water, or other natural resources. This concept is critical for ecosystem management (EM), a framework focused on sustaining ecosystem health while balancing human and ecological needs. Disproportionate environmental impacts often burden marginalized communities, which are more vulnerable to pollution and resource depletion owing to industrial activities, land degradation, and biodiversity loss. Environmental justice in ecosystem management emphasizes equitable access to natural resources and healthy environments for all individuals and communities. This concept integrates the principles of fairness, equity, and sustainability into the distribution of environmental benefits and burdens. The ecosystem approach, which has emerged in international environmental policy, shares synergies with environmental justice principles. It promotes mechanisms such as equitable benefit-sharing, conservation and sustainable use, adaptive management, and participatory practices. This approach addresses various dimensions of justice including distributional fairness, democratic choices, place specificity, and spatial equity. Environmental justice extends beyond human-centric concerns to include ecological justice, which considers the rights of nonhuman species and biospheric egalitarianism. This broader perspective challenges traditional notions of justice and calls for a more inclusive approach to ecosystem management. In practice, implementing environmental justice in ecosystem management is challenging. For instance, in Indonesia and Uzbekistan, despite legal mandates, environmental justice regulations have led to social and environmental conflict. Similarly, global disparities in exposure to environmental risks and benefits persist between developed and developing countries. To address these challenges, a comprehensive framework of environmental justice in ecosystem management is required. Collaborative governance models, adaptive management practices, incorporate distributive justice, procedural justice, justice-as-recognition, intergenerational equity, precautionary principle and recognition of traditional ecological knowledge are key to bridging the gap between EJ and EM, ensuring that all stakeholders have a voice in maintaining healthy ecosystems.
Innovations and Advancement in Climate Science: Mechanistic Approaches and Computational Modelling
(Springer, Singapore, 2025) Ambrina Sardar Khan , Prateek Srivastava
Given the essential role of climate models in understanding and forecasting the risks associated with climate change, an in-depth exploration of meteorological science provides a necessary foundation for appreciating the complexity and utility of these models. They offer the foundation for anticipating consequences, guiding adaptation measures, and establishing mitigation objectives. As society faces the urgent challenges posed by rapidly escalating climate change, there is an increasing demand for detailed and precise information to support robust decision making and achieve the goal of net zero emissions by 2050. Leveraging existing technological advancements and scientific capacities requires more international cooperation and investment in next-generation supercomputing and earth system science. This groundbreaking strategy has the potential to produce substantial scientific insights required to increase ambitions in both mitigation and adaptation activities over the next few decades. By encouraging collaboration and enhancing climate modelling, we can better navigate the complexities of climate change and work towards a sustainable future.
Invasion of Humans into Ecology: Studying Urban Patterns and Ecological Functions for Resilient Ecosystems
(Springer, Singapore, 2025) Ambrina Sardar Khan , Prateek Srivastava
Urban ecosystems are in constant flux driven by intricate interactions between socioeconomic dynamics and biophysical processes that occur at different locations and over varying periods. The central theoretical framework for urban ecology posits that cities are emergent entities shaped by the localized interactions between humans and natural systems. Urbanization presents substantial challenges to ecological integrity, resulting in altered biodiversity, compromised ecosystem functions, and reduced resilience. This chapter aims to investigate the patterns of human encroachment into natural habitats and their consequent impact on ecological functions, with a focus on developing strategies for resilient urban ecosystems. Using a multidisciplinary approach that integrates landscape ecology, urban planning, and environmental science, we analysed global and regional urbanization trends and their ecological consequences. Our findings indicate that urbanization leads to habitat fragmentation, biotic homogenization, and a decline in environmental and ecological services such as carbon (C) sequestration, water regulation, and soil health. To mitigate these challenges, we propose a series of strategies to enhance urban ecosystem resilience, including implementation of green infrastructure, sustainable urban planning policies, and active community involvement. This chapter underscores the importance of collaborative efforts between scientists, urban planners, policymakers, and the public in fostering resilient urban ecosystems capable of withstanding the pressures of urbanization and climate change.