Relevance of Advanced Plant Disease Detection Techniques in Disease and Pest Management for Ensuring Food Security and Their Implication: A Review

Plant diseases and pests present significant challenges to global food security, leading to substantial losses in agricultural productivity and threatening environmental sustainability. As the world’s population grows, ensuring food availability becomes increasingly urgent. This review explores the significance of advanced plant disease detection techniques in disease and pest management for enhancing food security. Traditional plant disease detection methods often rely on visual inspection and are time-consuming and subjective. This leads to delayed interventions and ineffective control measures. However, recent advancements in remote sensing, imaging technologies, and molecular diagnostics offer powerful tools for early and precise disease detection. Big data analytics and machine learning play pivotal roles in analyzing vast and complex datasets, thus accurately identifying plant diseases and predicting disease occurrence and severity. We explore how prompt interventions employing advanced techniques enable more efficient disease control and concurrently minimize the environmental impact of conventional disease and pest management practices. Furthermore, we analyze and make future recommendations to improve the precision and sensitivity of current advanced detection techniques. We propose incorporating eco-evolutionary theories into research to enhance the understanding of pathogen spread in future climates and mitigate the risk of disease outbreaks. We highlight the need for a science-policy interface that works closely with scientists, policymakers, and relevant intergovernmental organizations to ensure coordination and collaboration among them, ultimately developing effective disease monitoring and management strategies needed for securing sustainable food production and environmental well-being.

Visualizing Relationships between Drivers of Environmental Change and Pressures on Land-Based Ecosystems

The pursuit of human needs and demands is placing more pressure on land resources than ever before. The challenge of feeding 7 billion people is increasingly competing with rising demands for materials and biofuels. Deforestation and land degradation are among the pressing outcomes of these trends. Drivers of environmental change—including population growth, economic activity, consumption, urbanization, trade, conflict, and governance—clearly play a role in aggravating or mitigating these pressures on land. Despite advances in understanding causality in complex systems, navigating the interactions between these drivers remains a major challenge. This paper analyzes and visualizes the relationships between multiple, interacting drivers of environmental change and specific pressures on land-based ecosystems. Drawing on experience from the development of the Drivers and Land chapters of the UN Environment Programme’s Fifth Global Environment Outlook report (GEO-5), we use a series of Kiviat diagrams to illustrate the relative influence of key drivers on selected pressures on land. When individual diagrams are overlaid, patterns of influence emerge that can provide insight into where policy responses might best be targeted. We propose that, subject to some limitations, the Kiviat exercise can provide an accessible and potentially valuable “knowledge-intermediary” tool to help link science-based information to policy action.

Reflections on a Science and Technology Agenda for 21st Century Disaster Risk Reduction Based on the Scientific Content of the 2016 UNISDR Science and Technology Conference on the Implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–203

The first international conference for the post-2015 United Nations landmark agreements(Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030, Sustainable Development Goals, and Paris Agreement on Climate Change) was held in January 2016 to discuss the role of science and technology in implementing the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030. The UNISDR Science and Technology Conference on the Implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 aimed to discuss and endorse plans that maximize science's contribution to reducing disaster risks and losses in the coming 15 years and bring together the diversity of stakeholders producing and using disaster risk reduction(DRR) science and technology. This article describes the evolution of the role of science and technology in the policy process building up to the Sendai Framework adoption that resulted in an unprecedented emphasis on science in the text agreed on by 187 United Nations member states in March 2015 and endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly in June 2015. Contributions assembled by the Conference Organizing Committee and teams including the conference concept notes and the conference discussions that involved a broad range of scientists and decision makers are summarized in this article. The conference emphasized how partnerships and networks can advance multidisciplinary research and bring together science, policy, and practice; how disaster risk is understood, and how risks are assessed and early warning systems are designed; what data, standards, and innovative practices would be needed to measure and report on risk reduction; what research and capacity gaps exist and how difficulties in creating and using science for effective DRR can be overcome. The Science and Technology Conference achieved two main outcomes:(1) initiating the UNISDR Science and Technology Partnership for the implementation of the Sendai Framework; and(2) generating discussion and agreement regarding the content and endorsement process of the UNISDR Science and Technology Road Map to 2030.

Disaster Knowledge Gaps: Exploring the Interface Between Science and Policy for Disaster Risk Reduction in Europe

Expert scientific knowledge is fast becoming an integral part of disaster management, and, in the process, is changing the role of science for the reduction of disaster risks at the policy level. Yet science and policy operate in different domains between which there are often competing interests and modes of valuing knowledge. Based on research done as part of the research project Enhancing Synergies for Disaster Prevention in the European Union(ESPREssO), we discuss three major issues facing European Union member states with respect to the interface between science and policy for disaster risk reduction:knowledge transfer, disaster expertise, and risk awareness.In doing so, we hone in on three gaps: an epistemological gap, an institutional gap, and a strategic gap. We argue that these gaps can help explain underlying systematic challenges for the integration between science and policy for disaster risk reduction. These gaps need to be addressed by focusing on changes at the governance level.

Just us

Introduction:A thorough understanding of ecology is a necessity as the Earth becomes crowded,there is more intense resource use and exhaustion,and the exposure to pollutants has diversified.Outcomes:Everyone must be involved as we develop the moral compass and maps for a desirable world.The transition will be made within the context of complex social forces,which must be engaged in purposeful collaboration and action.All individuals have the embryonic need and possess diverse abilities to contribute to the transcendence of problems arising from the human response to social inequities.Discussion:These will be difficult and nuanced transitions.One example is the Balinese water distribution system,whose site-specific adjustments developed over thousands of years.Examples from country-to-country comparisons show that Eco-civilizations,to be'civil',must be fair,inclusive,and joyful,and more than about misleading metrics like Gross Domestic Product,individuality,material accumulations and competition.Conclusion:We are in this together;it is not'them or us'-it is only'Us'.