Sustainable Community Forest Management in Mexico: An Integrated Model of Three Socio-ecological Frameworks

Merging socioecological variables to predict risk of Chagas disease

How far are we from predicting the occurrence of zoonotic diseases? In this paper we have made use of both socioecological and ecological variables to predict Chagas disease occurrence. Chagas disease involves, Trypanosoma cruzi, a complex life-cycle parasite which requires two hosts: blood-feeding triatomine insects and vertebrate hosts including humans. We have used a common risk assessment method combined with datasets that imply critical environmental and socioeconomic drivers of Chagas dynamics to predict the occurrence of this disease. We also carried out a network analysis to assess the interactions among triatomines and mammal host species given their human contact via whether hunted, domesticated or associated with anthropogenic landscapes in Mexico. We found that social backwardness variation, lack of health services and altitude had the largest relative influence Chagas events. Triatoma pallidipennis made use of the largest host diversity. Host species shared by the highest number of different triatomines were a woodrat, the highly appreciated bushmeat, and racoon. These results indicate both the predominance of socio-economic factors over ecological ones, and how close we are from predicting zoonotic diseases.

Spatiotemporal Evaluation and Driving Mechanism of Land Ecological Security in Yan’an, a Typical Hill-Gully Region of China’s Loess Plateau, from 2000 to 2018

Forest landscape restoration and ecosystem of Loess Plateau have enhanced prominently, since the policy implementation (1999) of the Grain for Green Project in China. Land ecological security (LES) performs an extremely critical function for protecting vulnerable land resources and sustaining forest ecosystem stability. Predecessors’ studies substantially concentrate on biophysical and meteorologic variables using numerous grounded methodologies, little research has been launched on systematic natural-socio-economic-ecological relationships and how these contributions and regulations for LES evaluation. Here, pressure-state-response (PSR) model was used to establish the evaluation system of LES in regional-scale, and LES was classified into five levels measured by ecological security index (S), including high (S ≥ 0.75), medium−high (0.65 ≤ S < 0.75), medium (0.55 ≤ S < 0.65), medium−low (0.45 ≤ S < 0.55), and low (S < 0.45) level, for systematically analyzing its spatiotemporal distribution characteristic and response mechanism to explanatory variables in Yan’an, northwest China, from 2000 to 2018. The results demonstrated that: (1) LES status was mainly characterized by medium−high level and medium level, and maintained profound stability. (2) zone with medium−high LES level was mainly concentrated in western and southern regions, continuously expanding to northeast regions, and possessed the largest territorial area, accounting for 37.22–46.27% of the total area in Yan’an. (3) LES was primarily susceptible to normalized differential vegetation index, vegetation coverage, and land surface temperature with their optimal impacting thresholds of 0.20–0.64, 0.20–0.55, and 11.20–13.00 °C, respectively. (4) Normalized differential vegetation index and vegetation coverage had a significant synergistic effect upon LES based on their interactive explanation rate of 31% and had significant variation consistency (positive and negative) with LES, which were powerfully suggested to signal the intensification of the regional eco-security level in the persistent eco-greening process.