Despite providing water-related services as the primary purpose of urban water system (UWS), all relevant activities require capital investments and operational expenditures, consume resources (e.g. materials and chemicals), and may increase negative environmental impacts (e.g. contaminant discharge, emissions to water and air). Performance assessment of such a metabolic system may require deve...

The main aims of solid waste management are to protect the environment and human health; and, to conserve natural resources. However, increasing consumption, environmental issues and resource depletion threaten its sustainability. Solid waste management policies usually fail to reduce consumption, decrease environmental impacts, conserve raw materials and develop sustainable products. These pro...

This article provides an introduction into sustainability and health, with a focus on food. When health professionals integrate concepts of sustainability into life andwork, cobenefits can be leveraged, as healthpromoting services then also serve a greater cause V that of environmental protection, social justice, and economic viability. Regarding food, this may begin by simply considering the d...

This pedagogical and didactic experiment comes under the scope of the experimental sciences and it belongs to the environmental education and health field. The methodology used with a group of 15 preschool children was project work, and it took place in a nursery school in the central inland region of Portugal. The research theme was “My behaviour is healthy and environmentally friendly” and it...

There is a widespread recognition that cities, towns and villages have become increasingly dependent on motorised transport and a car-based land use pattern. This has led to a series of unintended consequences – in particular lack of regular exercise, the decline of local communities and excessive greenhouse gas emissions – with huge long term impacts on health and well-being. Official policies...

Sustainability issues involve complex interactions between social, economic, and environmental factors that are often viewed quite differently by disparate stakeholder groups. Issues of non-sustainability are wicked problems that have many, often obscure causes, and for which there is no single, straightforward solution. Furthermore, the concept of sustainability is itself contested. For exampl...

This paper critically reviews the expanding literature on applications of sustainability to healthcare policy and planning. It argues that the concept has been overgeneralized and has become a buzzword masking disparate agendas. It ignores the insights of the newest generation of systems theory on complex systems on the ubiquity of far-from-equilibrium conditions. Yet, a central meaning often a...

One of the challenges for public health is to build systems of indicators that allow monitoring current conditions and trends in environmental and health sustainability. This article focuses on the Legal Amazonia macro-region, which has undergone profound socioeconomic, environmental, and health changes since the mid-20th century. The conceptual framework adopted here was the model entitled Dri...