Over the past 50 years, humans have altered their environment to a significant extent, although human well-being is dependent on ecosystem functioning. Ecosystems are particularly affected by unsustainable use of resources, such as, food, water, and timber. Ecosystem functions depend on water, carbon, and other nutrients cycles. Human activities have modified these cycles in a number of way. Use of ecosystems for recreation, spiritual enrichment, cultural purposes, and for other short term benefits is growing continuously, although ecosystem capacity to provide such services has reported to be declined significantly. Human well-being depends on material welfare, health, good social relations, security and freedom, which are affected by changes in ecosystem services. Intensive ecosystem use often produces short-term advantage. Poverty level remains high in more than one billion people, who are dependent on ecosystems with an income of less than $1 per day as reported elsewhere. Regions including some parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America have the greatest ecosystemrelated problems and are facing developmental challenges. Habitat change occurs, for instance, when the area of land used for agriculture or cities is expanded. Instability and unproductivity including desertification, water logging, mineralization and many other unwanted outcomes throughout the world are continuing. Habitat fragmentation by roads, canals, power lines limits the species potential for dispersal and colonization. Indirect drivers, like changes in human population, economic activity and technology as well as socio-political and cultural factors affect ecosystems by influencing direct drivers. World climate has changed and continues to change, affecting temperature, rainfall and sea levels. Intensive fertilizer use has polluted ecosystems. Climate change and high nutrient levels in water are becoming increasing problems. Ecosystem management for shortterm benefits is increasing. Loss of biodiversity makes it difficult for ecosystems to recover from damage. Once an ecosystem has undergone an abrupt change, recovery to the original state is slow, costly, and sometimes impossible. Changes in ecosystems complexity- functioning relationships could diminish the stability, resistance and resilience of managed terrestrial ecosystems, and may jeopardize important food and fibre sources, and ability of natural ecosystems both to provide natural resources, and to remove pollutants from atmosphere. Ecological complexity and ecosystem functioning depend on factors that govern species coexistence. Complexity of landscapes is determined by number of ecosystem types, their characteristics, their sizes and shapes, and associated connectivity. Complexity at this scale would have large consequences on regional to global scale processes. Presence and arrangement of keystone ecosystem types, such as, wetlands often determine total carbon and nitrogen balance of a region. Changes in average or extreme environmental events and intense land use management are believed to increase species extinction rate in isolated habitat fragments. Loss of key species, such as, top predators, fruit dispersers and pollinators from habitat may severely disrupt ecosystems functioning. Land use changes due to expanding urbanization, concomitant landscape fragmentation and intensification of production systems. Such change results in transformation of an ecosystem, form one state to another state, via a transition phase. The combined value of 17 ecosystem services has been reported in the estimated range of US$16-54 trillion per year by Costanza and others. About 30% of modern medicines are developed from plants and animals, and 10 of the world's 25 topselling drugs in 1997 were reported to be derived from natural sources. Global market value of pharmaceuticals derived from genetic resources is estimated at US $ 75 000-150 000 million annually. Some 75% of the world's populations rely for health care on traditional medicines, which are derived directly from natural sources as recorded elsewhere. Socio-economic development of human civilization and human well-being depends on long-term health of environment including ecosystems. Environmental problems are generally addressed in isolation, but practically such problems are interrelated, and originate from the root cause of unsustainable development. Damage to natural ecosystems and release of environmental pollutants must be minimized for protecting natural ecosystem, and human well-being.

Ecosystems and Human Well-Being

The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide guide-posts to society as it attempts to respond to an array of pressing challenges One of these challenges is energy; thus, the SDGs have become paramount for energy policy-making Yet, while governments throughout the world have already declared the SDGs to be 'integrated and indivisible', there are still knowledge gaps surrounding how the interactions between the energy SDG targets and those of the non-energy-focused SDGs might play out in different contexts In this review, we report on a large-scale assessment of the relevant energy literature, which we conducted to better our understanding of key energy-related interactions between SDGs, as well as their context-dependencies (relating to time, geography, governance, technology, and directionality) By (i) evaluating the nature and strength of the interactions identified, (ii) indicating the robustness of the evidence base, the agreement of that evidence, and our confidence in it, and (iii) highlighting critical areas where better understanding is needed or context dependencies should be considered, our review points to potential ways forward for both the policy making and scientific communities First, we find that positive interactions between the SDGs outweigh the negative ones, both in number and magnitude Second, of relevance for the scientific community, in order to fill knowledge gaps in critical areas, there is an urgent need for interdisciplinary research geared toward developing new data, scientific tools, and fresh perspectives Third, of relevance for policy-making, wider efforts to promote policy coherence and integrated assessments are required to address potential policy spillovers across sectors, sustainability domains, and geographic and temporal boundaries The task of conducting comprehensive science-to-policy assessments covering all SDGs, such as for the UN's Global Sustainable Development Report, remains manageable pending the availability of systematic reviews focusing on a limited number of SDG dimensions in each case

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aaafe3/pdf

Connecting the Sustainable Development Goals by their energy inter-linkages

United Nations environment Programme (NL)

Education for advancing the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals: A systematic approach

Introduction Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 7 addresses environmental sustainability, with a target (target 10) to "halve by 2015 the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation". (1) Progress towards target 10 contributes significantly to the reduction of child mortality (target 5), major infectious diseases (target 8), maternal health (target 6) and quality of life of slum populations (target 11). It also contributes to gender equality and empowers women, and is linked to school enrolment and attendance, especially of girls (goal 3). Meeting the target would contribute to reducing poverty (target 1) and hunger (target 2) through use of water supply in industry and agriculture, saving productive time in accessing closer water sources and sanitation facilities, and contributing to workforce health. Importantly, improved water supply and sanitation promotes economic equity since the unserved tend to be the poorer and more vulnerable. In working towards the MDG target for water and sanitation, understanding resource requirements, resource gaps and where resources need to be deployed are critical. Corresponding assessments need to be based on reasonable estimates at global, regional and country levels. (2) Furthermore, comparing estimated finances required to existing funding levels helps to mobilize resources and to direct efforts to specific contexts (e.g. rural or urban) and to countries that are not meeting the MDG targets. (3) Since 2000, studies have estimated the cost of attaining one or both of the components of the target for water and sanitation at the global (4-8) and regional (2,9,10) levels. Reviews have compared these, which are in the range of US$ 9 to 30 billion per year at the global level. (11, 12) This wide range is largely explained by the different methodologies and unit cost assumptions. Different approaches to incremental improvement and on adequate service levels also contribute to the differences. Most studies have ignored the costs of maintaining existing coverage levels (the costs of operating, maintaining, monitoring and replacing existing infrastructure and facilities)--these are especially important as the global stock of assets increases and in the light of reports indicating wide variability on effective "working life". Toubkiss concludes, based on global cost studies, that "approximately US$ 10 billion per year would be required to supply low-cost water and sanitation services to people who are not currently supplied, and a further US$ 15 to 20 billion a year to provide them with a higher level of service and to maintain current levels of service to people who are already supplied" (our emphasis). Therefore, future financing studies should consider costs of operation, maintenance and replacement of existing as well as new water and sanitation infrastructure and facilities. (12) A major component of variability for sanitation is technology choice: a low-cost household improved latrine can provide both safety and privacy, yet waterborne sewerage must also include the cost of treatment to reduce health and environmental risks from the discharged wastewater. Thus Toubkiss concludes that in addition to the above costs "up to US$ 80 billion is projected solely for collecting and treating household wastewater". (12) While coverage has been advancing in many countries, recent estimates consistently show the sanitation component of the target to be significantly off-track, with a projected shortfall of 550 million people in 2015 from target achievement. (3) The drinking water component, while formally on-track (within 5% of target), is at the bottom limit of that range with prospects deteriorating. (13) Uneven progress between rural and urban populations is also often cited, and the lower baseline in rural compared to urban areas is well documented. (14) The importance of this is reflected in the fact that, uniquely among MDG indicators, rural-urban disaggregation is specified in the indicator definition, although there is no clear agreement that the target itself applies separately to rural and urban areas. …

Global Costs of Attaining the Millennium Development Goal for Water Supply and sanitation/Couts Globaux De la Realisation De L'objectif Du Millenaire Pour le Developpement Relatif a L'approvisionnement En Eau et a l'assainissement/Costos Mundiales del Logro del Objetivo De Desarrollo del Milenio Sobre El Abastecimiento De Agua Y El Saneamiento

The environmental engineering discipline has focused much of its historical efforts in developing regions of the world on advancing environmental sustainability through improving provision of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services. However, the skills and expertise that reside within the discipline of environmental engineering are fundamental to achieve a much broader range of sustainable development goals, including those related to health, climate, water, energy, and food security; economic development; and reduction of social inequalities. Accordingly, this article critically reviews several focus areas where environmental engineering should assume a more active presence in the global community that seeks to achieve sustainability in developing regions of the world. The 10 environmental engineering Grand Challenges for the developing world covered are: (1) understand the historical perspective of the discipline's connection with public health as the field transitions forward; (2) integ...

The Grandest Challenge of All: The Role of Environmental Engineering to Achieve Sustainability in the World's Developing Regions

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The Grandest Challenge of All: The Role of Environmental Engineering to Achieve Sustainability in the World's Developing Regions