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Aquatic ecosystems are contaminated with heavy metals by natural and anthropogenic sources. Whilst some heavy metals are necessary for plants as micronutrients, others can be toxic to plants and humans even in trace concentrations. Among heavy metals, cadmium (Cd), arsenic (As), chromium (Cr), lead (Pb), and mercury (Hg) cause significant damage to aquatic ecosystems and can invariably affect human health. Rice, a staple diet of many nations, and other aquatic plants used as vegetables in many countries, can bioaccumulate heavy metals when they grow in contaminated aquatic environments. These metals can enter the human body through food chains, and the presence of heavy metals in food can lead to numerous human health consequences. Heavy metals in aquatic plants can affect plant physicochemical functions, growth, and crop yield. Various mitigation strategies are being continuously explored to avoid heavy metals entering aquatic ecosystems. Understanding the levels of heavy metals in rice and aquatic plants grown for food in contaminated aquatic environments is important. Further, it is imperative to adopt sustainable management approaches and mitigation mechanisms. Although narrowly focused reviews exist, this article provides novel information for improving our understanding about heavy metal accumulation in rice and aquatic plants, addressing the gaps in literature.

The Organisation for Economic and Cultural Development (OECD) works with countries worldwide to implement testing in the areas of science, mathematics and reading through the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) every three years, and this process is recognised to influence education systems through areas such as curriculum. Over the past decade, the OECD increasingly has acknowledged the need to include a greater emphasis on environmental issues, including developing student competencies specifically in this area. For the 2025 PISA round, we were invited as environmental science education experts to contribute to the Science Framework, which underpins the science assessment. This paper explains how we responded to that invitation, including foregrounding the urgent need to understand the competencies of 15 year-olds to address critical socio-ecological challenges such as climate change. We argue that this provides environmental education practitioners and scholars with a powerful opportunity to gain world-scale data for research and advocacy, which could enhance the visibility and leverage for our field in curriculum, whilst also recognising the political process within which we were engaged.

Innovation and globalization fosters a tendency towards multiparty collaboration and strategic contacts among nations. A similar path was followed by the Chinese administration in 2013, with its “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI). The most important objective of the present fact-finding study was to demonstrate the links between economic growth, energy consumption, urbanization, gross fixed capital formation, trade openness, financial development and carbon emissions (ecological degradation) from a panel of 47 BRI economies, over a time span of 1980 to 2016. Dynamic panel estimations (dynamic ordinary least square (DOLS) and fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS)) were engaged to examine the long-run links between the subjected variables. Synchronized outcomes for the full panel show that energy consumption, gross fixed capital formation, economic growth, financial development, and urbanization unfavorably led to environmental degradation (CO2 emissions). However, trade openness is negatively correlated with emissions. Furthermore, pairwise panel Granger causative estimations justified bi-directional links from all regressors towards CO2 emissions, except for trade openness, which had unidirectional ties with environmental quality. In cross-country, long-run assessments, different results were found, with CO2 emissions being greatly increased by economic growth in all countries and energy consumption in 30 countries; other predictors testified to some mixed interactions with CO2 emissions in the country-level examination. The reported investigation provides some noteworthy guiding principles and policy inferences aimed at governments and ecological supervisory administrations, suggesting assertive moves towards truncated used of carbon fossil fuels and dependency on renewable energy, establishing waste and water treatment plants, familiarizing themselves with the concept of a green economy, and making the general public aware of eco-friendly investments in BRI economies.

Interdependent human and biophysical systems are highly complex and behave in unpredictable and uncontrollable ways. Social and ecological challenges that emerge from this complexity often defy straightforward solutions, and efforts to address these problems will require not only scientific and technological capabilities but also learning and adaptation. Scenarios are a useful tool for grappling with the uncertainty and complexity of social-ecological challenges because they enable participants to build adaptive capacity through the contemplation of multiple future possibilities. Furthermore, scenarios provide a platform for social learning, which is critical to acting in the face of uncertain, complex, and conflict-laden problems. We studied the Minnesota 2050 project, a collaborative project through which citizens collectively imagined future scenarios and contemplated the implications of these possibilities for the adaptability of their social and environmental communities. Survey and interview data indicate that these participatory scenario workshops built and strengthened relationships, enhanced participants’ understanding of other perspectives, and triggered systemic thinking, all of which is relevant to collective efforts to respond to social-ecological challenges through sustainable development activities. Our analysis shows that participatory scenarios can stimulate social learning by enabling participants to engage and to discuss options for coping with uncertainty through collaborative actions. Such learning can be of value to participants and to the organizations and decisions in which they are engaged, and scenario processes can be effective tools for supporting collaborative sustainable development efforts.

There are many studies on dams and development, their damaging effects on ecosystems, impact of involuntary displacement and the process of resettlement and rehabilitation. However independent studies on dams have added a new dimension, concluding that multipurpose river valley development plans are inextricably linked to the political economy of decolonisation inspired by nationalism and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru even called large dams “modern secular temples”. In this context, a study of the River Mahanadi mega-dam complex in Orissa, shows that its execution had clear connections with a nationalist modernising agenda and was inspired by the American Tennessee Valley Authority.

Traditional Indian civilisation developed an extensive and accurate understanding of the optimal relationship between the environment and human beings and studied ways of optimising the quality and quantity of agricultural output taking into account astronomical and cosmological parameters, the climate and the needs of the ecological milieu. This traditional knowledge studied and admired by eminent Western agronomists was promoted in the Gandhian spirit by JC Kumarappa’s economy of permanence much before organic agriculture and environmentally sound practices became internationally recognised methods of protecting and regenerating the land. This article highlights some sustainable and appropriate processes and technologies for suggested agricultural policies.

This article describes the rural renewal movement led by Aranya Agricultural Alternatives, a nongovernmental organisation promoting ecological practices, organic farming, sustainable development and traditional healthcare in villages in India. Mahatma Gandhi’s vision of uplifting and making villages self-sufficient was one of the key motivating factors behind Aranya and thus with a little thought, knowledge and hard work Aranya’s founder Narsanna Koppula and his team kicked off a revolution for reclaiming the soil and associated traditions. They have integrated Permaculture principles into the existing system and the successful completion of projects reiterates the fact that cultivating food crops does help sustain people’s lives and they need not be completely dependent on cash crops for survival.

India’s forest biodiversity management regime is analysed at the policy, legal and institutional levels from the perspective of the triple objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the principles of the Indian constitution. The forest biodiversity management regime has both structural and functional flaws that render it largely incapable of facing the challenge of increasing biodiversity degradation and deepening poverty among the Adivasis and other forest-dependent communities. This paper argues for the reform of the forest biodiversity management regime and offers recommendations in regard to most aspects of the regime, with a view of putting the country’s conservation enterprise on a course that is effective, sustainable and inclusive, rejecting the report of the High Power Committee or the Subramanian Committee, which is premised on easing corporate access to forests.

In the face of modern global challenges and the growing impacts of anthropogenic activity, the issue of agricultural pollution of natural resources has become a critical issue, especially in countries experiencing ecological and social crises. Ukraine, as one of Europe’s largest agricultural producers, faces unique challenges stemming from the legacy of radiation contamination following the Chornobyl nuclear disaster, intensive land use, and the environmental consequences of military conflict. Our study focuses on analyzing the sources of agricultural pollution, including chemical runoff, pesticides, herbicides, heavy metals, and nutrient leaching, as well as their impacts on the sustainability of agroecosystems, food security, and human well-being. The methodology is based on a systematic analysis of scientific research, agrochemical surveys, monitoring reports, and documents from governmental and non-governmental organizations. The assessment of natural resources was conducted using an integrated approach combining quantitative and qualitative pollution indicators. The results reveal an increasing threat to natural resources in Ukraine due to outdated technologies, radiation contamination, and military activities. Special attention is given to the need for a transition to agroecological farming methods and bioremediation for restoring contaminated lands and water resources. The study contributes to the development of sustainable approaches to managing natural resources and strategic measures to minimize agricultural pollution. The Ukrainian context underscores the relevance of research in countries with transitional economies and unique environmental challenges, making the findings significant for international scientific agendas and environmental policy. Future research perspectives include developing innovative technologies to prevent pollution and enhance the sustainability of agroecosystems to ecological challenges, as well as creating international resource management models based on Ukraine’s experience.