This book addresses sustainability thinking and the bigger picture, by taking into consideration how and from where contemporary schools of thought emerged approximately a quarter-century ago. Evidence from the literature illustrates a number of key concepts and techniques that have been tested and continue to be tested, within various multi-disciplinary fields, on societal functionality. Research into sustainable societies needs to be sound, ethical, and creative. A cross-sectoral, interdisciplinary examination of challenges and strategies is used to interlink sustainability thinking and human-nature relations. With an ever-growing number of people now concentrated within urban areas, providing not only environmental quality and livable space, but also security and resilient urban systems, is becoming increasingly important. This urbanization trend has overlapped with environmental degradation, consumption of natural resources, habitat loss, and overall ecosystem change. Consequently, the goal is for cleaner, safer societies – with higher standards of living – to excel in support of current and future generational communities. The book tackles these challenges by integrating environmental scholarship, economic evaluation, and urban strategies under one umbrella of thought. The relational paradigms presented include examples that correlate developed and developing countries, socioeconomics and community development, and governance of knowledge and education. As such, the book argues, furthering of knowhow should be accessible and shared in order to achieve maximum innovation and benefit. Sustainability thinking, after all, is a metric for intrinsic human-nature relations in terms of past performance, present development, and future goals. This book discusses this metric and offers novel approaches to growing societies and what we can do next.

In Ontology and Closeness in Human-Nature Relationships, Neil H. Kessler identifies the preconceptions which can keep the modern human mind in the dark about what is happening relationally between humans and the more-than-human world. He has written an accessible work of environmental philosophy, with a focus on the ontology of human-nature relationships. In it, he contends that large-scale environmental problems are intimate and relational in origin. He also challenges the deeply embedded, modernist assumptions about the relational limitations of more-than-human beings, ones which place erroneous limitations on the possibilities for human/more-than-human closeness. Diverging from the posthumanist literature and its frequent reliance on new materialist ontology, the arguments in the book attempt to sweep away what ecofeminists call “human/nature dualisms. In doing so, conceptual avenues open up that have the power to radically alter how we engage in our daily interactions with the more-than-human world all around us. Given the diversity of fields and disciplines focused on the human-nature relationship, the topics of this book vary quite broadly, but always converge at the nexus of what is possible between humans and more-than-human beings. The discussion interweaves the influence of human/nature dualisms with the limitations of Deleuzian becoming and posthumanism’s new materialism and agential realism. It leverages interhuman interdependence theory, Charles Peirce’s synechism of feeling and various treatments of Theory of Mind while exploring the influence of human/nature dualisms on sustainability, place attachment, common worlds pedagogy, emergence, and critical animal studies. It also explores the implications of plant electrical activity, plant intelligence, and plant “neurobiology” for possibilities of relational capacities in plants while even grappling with theories of animism to challenge the animate/inanimate divide. The result is an engaging, novel treatment of human-nature relational ontology that will encourage the reader to look at the world in a whole new way.

The book presents an overview and historic perspectives of a novel scientific field coming of age today: coastal and ocean management. It covers diverse and changing issues, ranging from conflict resolution to governance and ethical-political imperatives, natural disasters and climate change, culminating in coastal and ocean typologies, the basis for a future theory of coasts and oceans. Eighteen chapters, written by two main authors in cooperation with international experts, review 25 years of research. The authors address challenges to society related to global change issues that have been generated by human activity in both temperate (Sweden, Germany and the United States) and tropical regions (Brazil, Indonesia). Ultimately, the book documents the maturation of a field and responds to changing societal needs and scientific outlooks. It gathers recent analyses along with important earlier research, with a foreword by Biliana Cicin-Sain and Richard Delaney, globally renowned as coastal and ocean experts in theory and practice. Its broad approach makes the book a must-read for graduate and postgraduate students, as well as coastal management and marine spatial planning practitioners, and for researchers in the fields of geography, anthropology, history of science, human and social ecology, and environmental and development studies.

Sustainable interdisciplinarity focuses on human–nature relations and a multitude of contemporary overlapping research between society and the environment. A variety of disciplines have played a large part in better understanding sustainable development since its high-profile emergence approximately a quarter of a century ago. At present, the forefront of sustainability research is an array of methods, techniques, and growing knowledge base that considers past, present, and future pathways. Specific multidisciplinary concentrations within the scope of societal changes, urban landscape transformations, international environmental comparative studies, as well as key theories and dynamics relating to sustainable performance are explored. Specializations in complex sustainability issues address international governance arrangements, rules, and organizations—both public and private—within the scope of four themes: sustainability, human geography, environment, and interdisciplinary societal studies. This book contains eleven thoroughly refereed contributions concerning pressing issues that interlink sustainable interdisciplinarity with the presented themes in terms of the human–nature interface.

In 2016, Japan proposed “Society 5.0”, a concept in which innovation and technology are used to solve social problems. The core elements of Society 5.0 include problem-solving and value creation, interdisciplinary skills, diverse opportunities, resilience, and environmental harmony. This concept also highlights the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which all individuals and organizations need to face. The promotion of the SDGs from a psychological perspective is believed to be beneficial and aligns with the intention of the United Nations. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can be examined from a microscopic level to understand individuals' mental processes and attitudes toward them. Investigating the relationships between the SDGs and social and positive psychology can benefit their promotion. Discussing the SDGs from a psychological perspective aligns with the intention of the United Nations.

The study of estuaries and coasts has seen enormous growth in recent years, since changes in these areas have a large effect on the food chain, as well as on the physics and chemistry of the ocean. As the coasts and river banks around the world become more densely populated, the pressure on these ecosystems intensifies, putting a new focus on environmental, socio-economic and policy issues. Written by a team of international expert scientists, under the guidance of Chief Editors Eric Wolanski and Donald McClusky, the Treatise on Estuarine and Coastal Science, Ten Volume Set examines topics in depth, and aims to provide a comprehensive scientific resource for all professionals and students in the area of estuarine and coastal science Most up-to-date reference for system-based coastal and estuarine science and management, from the inland watershed to the ocean shelf Chief editors have assembled a world-class team of volume editors and contributing authors Approach focuses on the physical, biological, chemistry, ecosystem, human, ecological and economics processes, to show how to best use multidisciplinary science to ensure earth's sustainability Provides a comprehensive scientific resource for all professionals and students in the area of estuarine and coastal science Features up-to-date chapters covering a full range of topics

Prioritizing Sustainability Education presents theory-to-practice essays and case studies by educators from six countries who elucidate dynamic approaches to sustainability education. Too often, students graduate with exploitative, consumer-driven orientations toward ecosystems and are unprepared to confront the urgent challenges presented by environmental degradation. Educators are prioritizing sustainability-oriented courses and programs that cultivate students’ knowledge, skills, and values and contextualize them within relational connections to local and global ecosystems. Little has yet been written, however, about the comprehensive sustainability education that educators are currently designing and implementing, often across or at the edges of disciplinary boundaries. The approaches described in this book expand beyond conventional emphases on developing students’ attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors by thinking and talking about ecosystems to additionally engaging students with ecosystems in sensory, affective, psychological, and cognitive dimensions, as well as imaginative, spiritual, or existential dimensions that guide environmental care and regeneration. This book supports educators and graduate and upper-level undergraduate students in the humanities, social sciences, environmental studies, environmental sciences, and professional programs in considering how to reorient their fields toward relational sustainability perspectives and practices.

The severity of interconnected socio-economic and environmental impacts on landscapes and people across Africa are exacerbated as a result of land degradation, conflict, poor governance, competition for land and inequality, and exacerbated by climate change. In pursuing pathways towards a more resilient future, collaborative and multi-stakeholder governance and management of landscapes have been promoted by government agencies, NGOs and conservation organisations as a possible solution. However, there is no single way to achieve effective collaboration, and different landscape projects have experimented with different entry points and engagement processes. Grounded in partnerships amongst researchers, practitioners and development partners with expertise in landscape governance and management in Africa, this book describes and collates key lessons from practice for supporting more resilient and equitable landscapes.

Sacred Natural Sites are the world's oldest protected places. This book focuses on a wide spread of both iconic and lesser known examples such as sacred groves of the Western Ghats (India), Sagarmatha /Chomolongma (Mt Everest, Nepal, Tibet - and China), the Golden Mountains of Altai (Russia), Holy Island of Lindisfarne (UK) and the sacred lakes of the Niger Delta (Nigeria). The book illustrates that sacred natural sites, although often under threat, exist within and outside formally recognised protected areas, heritage sites. Sacred natural sites may well be some of the last strongholds for building resilient networks of connected landscapes. They also form important nodes for maintaining a dynamic socio-cultural fabric in the face of global change. The diverse authors bridge the gap between approaches to the conservation of cultural and biological diversity by taking into account cultural and spiritual values together with the socio-economic interests of the custodian communities and other relevant stakeholders.