Search Results (5,448)

Floodplains are key components of inland river systems of Australia with floodplain vegetation playing important roles in habitat provision, nutrient cycling, and supporting strong cultural values. These vegetation communities are highly dynamic, particularly in response to flooding. However, decades of water development and highly managed water resources are linked to wetland habitat decline in this region. We explored patterns of vegetation response to flooding over twenty years at the Narran Lakes Ramsar site, a terminal floodplain wetland system in the northern Murray–Darling Basin, Australia. We collated data from previous monitoring efforts and resampled permanent plots for understorey vegetation structure and composition. Three flood events were surveyed over a 20-year period, with each event surveyed on two occasions first, following initial drawdown (minimal standing water) and a second survey under dry or drier conditions (~6 months after the recession of floodwaters). Overall, we observed a high diversity of native plant species (~110 species) in understorey communities across the wetland and high compositional turnover both between flood events and within years (i.e., paired surveys). Notably, vegetation cover, but not species richness, was greatest in the 2023 survey following the largest of the three flood events investigated. Understorey composition was strongly driven by inundation regimes, particularly the duration of recent inundation, and the number of wet and dry years prior. Large flood events are critical for supporting vegetation resilience in these systems, increasingly so under a drier climate and with stretched water resources. Continued long-term monitoring of vegetation through flood cycles at the Narran Lakes will be critical to understanding ecological responses to longer-term changes in climate and hydrology to inform adaptive water management and maintain the values of this Ramsar site. Full article

Community disaster resilience is increasingly guiding risk-reduction investments, but in many Southeast European settings, comparable subnational data remain scarce. This study assesses perceived community disaster resilience across Serbia by combining BRIC–DROP dimensions into a single index and analyzing differences across hazard types and sociodemographic factors. A cross-sectional household survey was conducted using multistage random sampling and the “next birthday” method for respondent selection. The final sample included 1200 adults from 22 local government units across four regions: Belgrade, Vojvodina, Šumadija & Western Serbia, and Southern & Eastern Serbia. Participants evaluated preventive measures and societal resilience for ten hazard types and considered five social dimensions: social structure, social capital, social mechanisms, social equity/diversity, and social beliefs. Descriptive statistics, bivariate analyses (including Pearson correlations, t-tests, and ANOVA), and multiple linear regression identified key predictors of preventive behavior and perceived resilience. Composite scores highlighted spatial resilience differences. Overall perceptions were generally low, mostly falling below the midpoint of the scale. Furthermore, the highest ratings for implemented preventive measures were recorded for pandemics/epidemics, storms/hail, and floods, whereas the lowest were observed for environmental pollution and droughts. Perceived resilience was highest for snowstorms, storms/hail, and pandemics/epidemics, and lowest for environmental pollution and droughts. Also, respondents reported relatively strong family ties and favorable perceptions of communication and access to basic supplies, but weak institutional capacity, particularly in budget allocation, early warning and public notification, rapid decision-making, and evacuation and shelter readiness. Regression results were statistically significant but explained only a small portion of the variance. Age and public-sector employment positively predicted perceived resilience; fear, income, and, to a lesser extent, education were negatively associated. These findings highlight the structural and psychosocial factors that shape perceptions of resilience. The BRIC–DROP composite indicates generally low perceived preparedness and resilience, especially in risk communication, evacuation and shelter readiness, and financing—the key bottlenecks in strengthening local resilience. The results recommend combining institutional reform with targeted risk communication to reduce fear and build trust, especially focusing on hazard areas with the lowest confidence, such as environmental pollution and drought. Full article

This study investigates the direct impact of financial repression on economic growth in the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) and the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) using a lagged composite repression index and panel fixed-effects regressions. Contrary to theoretical expectations, lagged repression exhibits a significantly positive association with GDP growth in the main model, with robustness checks confirming no negative direct effect. The findings suggest that in pegged currency unions, repression may support growth through public channels or forced savings, offsetting private crowding-out, while capital formation remains a key driver. This effect, contrasting with repression’s negative impact on investment, highlights union-specific resilience and calls for calibrated reforms to balance stability with deepening. Full article

Pinyon–juniper (PJ) woodlands, one of the most extensive mature and old-growth woodland types in the Western United States, provide critical ecological, cultural, and economic benefits but face increasing threats from climate change, altered disturbance regimes, invasive species, and pests. We developed the PJ Woodland Climate Adaptation Management Menu, a decision support tool designed to guide adaptive, climate-informed management of PJ ecosystems, particularly within the Colorado Plateau ecoregion. The menu was created through an iterative, collaborative process involving literature review, integration of strategies from existing adaptation frameworks, and extensive input from scientists, land managers, and community partners during workshops and focus groups. The menu links specific, evidence-based approaches to each of six broad strategies, including soliciting community input, mitigating disturbance, enhancing and maintaining biodiversity, conserving ecotones, timing actions for optimal outcomes, and accepting climate-driven changes when appropriate. It is intended for use with the Adaptation Workbook to help managers connect local goals and climate vulnerabilities to tailored management tactics. Hypothetical scenarios demonstrate the menu’s application to contrasting PJ woodland conditions, from die-off events to old-growth maintenance. Lessons learned during development underscore the value of early stakeholder engagement, cross-sector collaboration, and balancing diverse ecological objectives. This menu offers a flexible, transferable framework to strengthen climate resilience in PJ woodlands and serves as a model that could improve adaptation planning in other dryland forest ecosystems. Full article

Urban fires are highly destructive with high casualty rates, often causing significant casualties and property losses. The obstruction of the Community Emergency Corridor System is a critical factor exacerbating fire casualties, directly related to residents’ life safety and public security governance effectiveness. Currently, community emergency corridors face severe systemic bottlenecks in the coordinated development of triadic space (physical, social, and information spaces), and the lag of information space has become a fatal shortcoming restricting emergency response efficiency, highlighting the urgent need for a comprehensive evaluation framework. However, existing studies mostly focus on a single spatial dimension, lacking a systematic framework for the coordinated patency of triadic space. Based on this, this study adopts the triadic space perspective, takes 77 typical communities in China as research objects, and uses the Entropy Weighted TOPSIS method to construct an evaluation index system for the accessibility of the Community Emergency Corridor System and systematically measure its level. The results show that the patency of triadic space is unbalanced overall; social space outperforms physical and information spaces (with the latter being the lowest), reflecting deficiencies in emergency information release and acquisition. Regionally, accessibility in Northeast China is significantly higher than in other regions (Northeast > West > Central > East), and eastern China has the lowest scores in physical and information spaces due to high urbanization, dense buildings, and land scarcity. Corresponding countermeasures are proposed to address regional disparities. The triadic space evaluation framework and methodological path provide a replicable analytical tool for urban fire-oriented community emergency management and references for fire resilience governance in other countries or high-density communities. Full article

Tourism and hospitality organisations in remote, highly seasonal Arctic and sub-Arctic destinations face persistent workforce instability, multicultural team dynamics, and well-being risks that threaten service reliability and organisational continuity. Previous research has focused mainly on destination- and community-level resilience, while giving less attention to how resilience is built within tourism organisations through everyday workforce-related practices. This study examines people-centred organisational resilience through a qualitative comparative design in two northern contexts: Iceland and Finnish Lapland. The empirical material comprised semi-structured interviews in Iceland and interviews, organisational documents, and field observations in Finnish Lapland, collected in autumn 2025. The data were analysed using thematic analysis. The findings identify four recurring resilience mechanisms: leadership under seasonal and environmental pressure; employee experience across employment phases; living conditions and belonging; and ethical governance. Here, “mechanisms” refers not simply to broad topics but to organisational processes through which recurring practices support resilience in remote, highly seasonal tourism settings. Together, these mechanisms show that resilience in remote tourism is built not only through operational flexibility or crisis response, but through people-centred organisational practices that support continuity, coordination, safety, and trust across seasons. The study contributes a workforce-centred extension of resilience theory in tourism and offers a comparative account of how these mechanisms operate across two northern tourism settings. Full article

Wild relatives of cultivated legumes represent valuable genetic resources for crop improvement, ecosystem resilience, and sustainable agriculture. This study presents a comparative ecological and metagenomic assessment of three biogeographically distinct regions in Bulgaria—Kaliakra, Strandzha, and the Eastern Rhodopes—where populations of wild legumes, including Pisum elatius, Cicer montbrettii, Vicia incisa, and Lupinus spp., occur. Field expeditions were conducted during flowering and seed maturation stages, followed by rhizosphere soil sampling and high-throughput sequencing targeting bacterial 16S rRNA and fungal ITS regions. Soil physicochemical properties, microbial diversity indices, and taxonomic composition were analysed and compared among regions. Distinct microbial community structures were identified. Kaliakra soils were dominated by Firmicutes (26–58%) and Proteobacteria (20–25%), while Strandzha soils showed higher abundance of Actinobacteriota (12–68%) and Proteobacteria (10–35%). The Eastern Rhodopes exhibited more balanced communities, with Proteobacteria (30–45%), Firmicutes (7–43%), and Actinobacteriota (3–11%). Fungal communities also differed significantly, with Nectriaceae dominating in Kaliakra, higher evenness in Strandzha, and intermediate diversity in the Eastern Rhodopes. Alpha diversity revealed the highest bacterial richness in Kaliakra, whereas the Eastern Rhodopes showed the greatest community evenness. Beta diversity analysis demonstrated clear regional separation driven by environmental filtering. These findings highlight the ecological and microbiological differentiation of wild legume habitats and support their conservation and utilisation in sustainable agriculture and breeding programs. Full article

semantic communication (SemCom) has emerged as a task-oriented communication paradigm that prioritizes meaning delivery over exact bit recovery. The integration of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) into SemCom further enables knowledge-guided inference, multimodal reconstruction, and semantic compression through architectures such as large language models, variational autoencoders, generative adversarial networks, and diffusion models. At the same time, this integration introduces new security and privacy risks, including semantic eavesdropping, model inversion, semantic jamming, covert backdoors, prompt manipulation, and knowledge-base leakage, which are not adequately captured by conventional communication security models. In this survey, we provide a security-centric review of GenAI-assisted semantic communication systems by organizing the literature according to threat models, attack surfaces, defence strategies, and semantic modalities across text, image, and multimodal settings. The survey was conducted using IEEE Xplore, ACM Digital Library, SpringerLink, arXiv, and Google Scholar. Approximately 180 papers were initially screened, and 53 representative studies published between 2021 and 2026 were selected for detailed review. Based on this analysis, we classify the major threats into adversarial perturbation, jamming, poisoning and backdoor attacks, privacy leakage and semantic eavesdropping, and generative-model-specific vulnerabilities involving diffusion, large language models, and multimodal foundation models. We further map the corresponding defences, including adversarial training, model ensembling, semantic-aware encryption, diffusion-guided denoising, privacy-preserving representation learning, and secure resource allocation. The survey also identifies persistent open challenges, including the lack of standardized semantic security metrics, unified benchmarks, cross-layer evaluation frameworks, and robust defences for GenAI-native and multimodal semantic communication systems. Overall, this work provides a structured reference for the design of secure, trustworthy, and attack-resilient generative semantic communication systems for future intelligent networks. Full article

Housing acquisition decisions play a strategic role in shaping urban habitability and long-term sustainability, as they directly influence the quality of the built environment and users’ well-being. From an architectural and urban perspective, housing selection can be understood as an assessment of urban habitat quality, in which economic, spatial, social, environmental, and risk-related dimensions interact to define the conditions of livability. This study proposes a multi-objective decision-support framework that integrates evolutionary optimization algorithms (NSGA-II and MOEA/D) with multi-criteria decision analysis (TOPSIS) to support sustainable housing decisions. The model simultaneously considers four conflicting objectives: minimizing acquisition cost, minimizing spatial accessibility and disutility from essential services, maximizing socio-spatial safety and long-term habitat value, and minimizing environmental and territorial risk. A real-world case study in the Tampico metropolitan area demonstrates how the proposed approach generates Pareto-optimal housing alternatives that explicitly reveal trade-offs between habitability dimensions. The resulting non-dominated solutions are subsequently ranked using TOPSIS to reflect user-centered preferences and facilitate transparent decision-making. The results show that the proposed framework effectively operationalizes the concept of urban habitat quality through an explainable, customizable computational tool, thereby contributing to sustainable urban development, resilience, and informed housing choices. This research supports the technological enablement of habitat assessment and aligns with the objectives of SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities, offering a replicable methodology for urban and architectural decision-making contexts. Full article

Background: Disruptions in social and circadian rhythms are increasingly recognized as key contributors to depressive symptomatology and impaired quality of life, particularly in older adults, for whom daily regularity represents a crucial determinant of psychological and functional stability. Understanding the interplay between rhythm dysregulation, mood disturbances, and perceived well-being may inform preventive strategies in aging populations. Objective: This study aimed to examine the association between social rhythm dysregulation, depressive symptoms, and perceived quality of life in a sample of community-dwelling older adults. Methods: A cross-sectional observational study was conducted among 119 older adults (mean age 72.26 ± 4.72 years) enrolled in an active aging program. Social rhythms were assessed using the Brief Social Rhythm Scale (BSRS), depressive symptoms with the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), and health-related quality of life with the SF-12 Health Survey. Pearson correlation analyses and multiple linear regression models were applied. Results: Greater social rhythm dysregulation was significantly associated with higher depressive symptom levels (r = 0.41, p < 0.001) and lower perceived quality of life (r = −0.39, p < 0.001). In multivariate analyses, both rhythm dysregulation (β = −0.1863, p < 0.001) and depressive symptoms (β = −0.2885, p = 0.037) independently predicted poorer quality of life. Conclusions: In community-dwelling older adults, irregular social rhythms and depressive symptoms are independently and jointly associated with reduced quality of life. These findings highlight social rhythm regulation as a relevant and potentially modifiable target for preventive and supportive interventions aimed at promoting mental well-being and resilience in later life. Full article

Pinus cembroides is among the pine species best adapted to arid and semi-arid ecosystems in the Americas, and its potential distribution is projected to expand under climate change. However, the success of this expansion will depend on belowground processes, particularly the role of soil fungal communities, which in subtropical forests are key for nutrient cycling and plant resilience to environmental stress. Yet their vertical stratification and responses to forest management remain poorly understood, especially in semi-arid systems. Here, we characterized fungal communities from mineral soil and litter associated with P. cembroides across a forest management gradient (mature forests, disturbed stands, and pine plantations) at the southern limit of the species’ distribution. We evaluated the influence of climatic, edaphic, vegetation structure, and microbial activity variables (soil moisture, precipitation, pH, tree density, vegetation cover, temperature and extracellular enzyme activity) on fungal community composition. We found strong vertical stratification between litter and mineral soil. When both substrates were analyzed together as an integrated soil profile, forest condition had no significant effect on alpha diversity; however, substrate-specific analyses revealed higher richness in mineral soil of mature forests compared to disturbed and plantation sites, while litter communities showed no significant differences among conditions. Litter communities were characterized by saprotrophic and endophytic fungi, whereas mineral soil communities were enriched in ectomycorrhizal and other root-associated taxa. Distance-based redundancy analysis indicated that fungal community composition was primarily associated with moisture content, precipitation, pH, tree density, and carbon-degrading enzyme activity. These results highlight the importance of substrate differentiation and environmental gradients in shaping fungal communities in semi-arid pine forests, and provide a baseline for understanding how management and climate change influence soil fungal diversity and ecosystem functioning. Full article

This study examines the drivers and challenges/barriers faced by built-environment professionals in applying circular economy (CE) principles within Maiduguri, Nigeria’s housing delivery system, a city recovering from prolonged conflict. Using a mixed-method approach, including a literature review, an interview and a questionnaire administered to construction professionals (n = 188), the research assesses awareness and practical implementation. Key drivers for CE adoption include regulatory incentives, increased research funding, potential cost savings, and rising environmental awareness. Major barriers, however, consist of limited technical expertise, weak policy enforcement, and financial constraints. The analysis also reveals significant gaps in on-site waste management and resource recovery practices. To address these issues, this study recommends targeted capacity-building programmes, stronger policy frameworks, and enhanced multi-stakeholder collaboration. Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) should be supported to venture into engineering waste recycling and management. These measures aim to promote core CE practices, such as waste minimisation, reuse, recycling, and remanufacturing within the construction industry, aligned with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities). The research concludes that integrating CE strategies can foster sustainable housing development in Maiduguri, supporting environmental protection, socio-economic growth, and increased resilience of the built environment in post-conflict contexts. Full article

The livestock sector underpins food security, employment, and rural livelihoods across the Southern African Development Community (SADC), contributing up to 50% of agricultural GDP and supporting more than 60% of rural households. Yet climate change poses escalating threats through heat stress, declining pasture productivity, water scarcity, and vector-borne diseases that compromise productivity and economic resilience. This review identifies and locates effective climate change mitigation strategies along the livestock value chain, spanning production, processing, transport, and consumption, to promote sustainable, low-emission, and inclusive growth in the SADC region. A broad review of 46 peer-reviewed and institutional sources (2000–2024) was undertaken, focusing on livestock-related mitigation within SADC and comparable agro-ecological systems. Strategies were thematically categorized by value-chain stage and assessed for their emission-reduction and livelihood-enhancement potential. Local strategies include genetic improvement for low-methane and heat-tolerant breeds, adaptive rangeland and feed management, renewable-energy adoption in processing, climate-resilient transport infrastructure, and consumer awareness of low-emission products. Evidence suggests potential GHG-emission reductions of 18–30%, coupled with productivity gains and improved smallholder incomes. Coordinated implementation through the SADC Regional Agricultural Investment Plan (2021–2030) and national policies can transform the livestock sector into a climate-resilient driver of inclusive growth. Further research should quantify the socioeconomic feasibility and scaling potential of these strategies across production systems. Successful integration of climate change mitigation imperatives must be tailored to local biophysical conditions (e.g., rainfall, soil type) and socioeconomic contexts (e.g., market access, cultural practices). Full article

This study applies a dynamic strategic foresight to examine how Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS)-based Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), supported by Advanced Communication Systems (ACS), can be integrated into a coherent System of Systems (SoS) for sustainable and effective Disaster Management (DM). These three domains (AAM, ACS, and DM) form a strongly coupled Internet of Things (IoT) triad within an integrated SoS. Using lessons learned from previous or running research projects of the contributing authors, i.e., SUDEM, REGUAS, 5G!Drones, and ETHER, the foresight identifies key enablers—including resilient 5G/6G communication architectures, interoperable data fusion frameworks, and UAS-supported situational awareness. It highlights structural challenges such as fragmented standards, limited cross-agency data integration, and gaps in ACS redundancy for emergency operations. The resulting roadmap outlines development priorities for ACS-enabled AAM, from unified communication protocols and hybrid TN-NTN architectures to education and capacity-building for digital-centric DM. Practically, the findings suggest that policymakers should prioritise harmonised regulatory frameworks for AAM-ACS interoperability and invest in global data exchange standards, while system designers should incorporate redundant communication layers and modular SoS architectures to ensure operational continuity under extreme conditions. Full article

Introduction: HIV remains a public health concern despite several decades of effort. In sub-Saharan Africa, where political, environmental, and economic challenges persist, progress toward “Getting to Zero,” including zero new infections and zero HIV-related deaths, has been significantly slow. Although sub-Saharan Africa has seen the successful implementation of HIV/AIDS interventions across behavioral, biomedical, and structural approaches, there has been limited focus on housing insecurity—the inability to access safe, affordable, and stable housing—and mental health among people living with HIV, despite the critical role of housing insecurity in overall health and well-being. Therefore, this study explores how housing insecurity shapes mental health experiences among PLHIV in Kisumu. Methods: Using a qualitative approach, we purposively recruited 70 individuals from households participating in the Pamoja community-based organization’s Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) project. We then conducted in-depth interviews (IDIs) with 30 participants and 4 focus group discussions (FGDs) with 40 adult participants living with HIV (ALHIV). Audio-recorded interviews were transcribed verbatim, translated from Luo into English, and uploaded to Atlas.TI v.23, a qualitative data analysis software. We then performed thematic analysis guided by grounded theory. Results: Our findings showed that housing insecurity was a significant issue for individuals living with HIV. The majority of participants experienced heightened feelings of worry, shame, fear, anxiety, stress, and depression, which negatively impacted their adherence to HIV treatment and care. While some participants showed resilience through acceptance and disclosure, limited resources and ongoing insecurity heightened vulnerability to mental health issues. Discussions: These findings underscore the importance of housing in HIV care programs and offer valuable insights for practitioners and policymakers. The findings highlight the need to incorporate housing stability and mental health support into HIV programs. Full article