Land degradation is reducing biodiversity and crop yields, and exacerbating the impacts of climate change, throughout the world. Monitoring land degradation is required to determine the effectiveness of land management and restoration practices, and to track progress toward reaching land degradation neutrality (LDN). It is also needed to target investments where they are most needed, and will have the greatest impact. The most useful indicators of land degradation vary among soils and climates. The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) selected three widely accepted land degradation indicators for LDN: land cover, net primary production (NPP) and soil carbon stocks. In addition to non-universal relevance, the use of these indicators has been limited by data availability, especially for carbon. This article presents an alternative monitoring framework based on the definition and ranking of states in a degradation hierarchy. Unique classifications can be defined for different regions and even different landscapes allowing, for example, perennial cropland to be ranked above a highly degraded grassland. The article concludes with an invitation to discuss the potential value of this approach and how it could be practically implemented at landscape to global scales. The ultimate objective is to support decision-making information at the local levels at which land degradation is addressed through improved management and restoration while providing the information necessary for reporting on progress toward meeting goals.

Resilience is the dynamic process of adapting to or recovering from stressors, maintaining positive mental health. While most studies have investigated resilience after major life events, less is known about resilience in everyday life. To understand how individuals recover from everyday stressors, and associations with other psychosocial variables, well-being and mental health, we conducted a systematic review of studies to daily resilience, i.e., recovery from daily stressors, using the experience sampling method (ESM). Out of 36 included studies, 11 studies investigated daily resilience in youth (10.9–24.7 years) and 25 in adult samples. Daily resilience was operationalized either with self-report items adapted from trait measures (17 studies) or in terms of affective recovery from daily stressors (20 studies). The self-reported ability to recover from daily stressors reflects subjective experiences of coping with stressors, whereas daily resilience as recovery from daily stressors captures the dynamic process, but is understudied in youth. Daily resilience was associated with psychosocial variables, including better sleep quality and greater optimism. Furthermore, individuals with mental health problems consistently showed longer recovery times after daily stressors. Overall, ESM studies highlight that daily resilience could help to identify individuals at-risk for mental health problems. The findings may facilitate timely interventions.

Marine flooding events occasionally interrupted the everyday lives of prehistoric coastal populations. Identification of such events are important for studies of past population dynamics and adaptive strategies. However, short-term events are rarely identified in the geological record, which puts a severe limit on our archaeological interpretive framework. This paper explores the temporality of the second Holocene transgression in southwestern Norway (ca. 3500 BCE) and works under the hypothesis that it was not a slow geological process but rather one or multiple short-term events. A Bayesian approach is used to analyze multidisciplinary time series data collected from sites located in Norway and Shetland. The resulting chronological model supports the hypothesis that the second Holocene transgression in southwestern Norway was a rapid flooding event that occurred in the period 3445–3395 BCE (Early Neolithic II). It is also suggested, but not argued conclusively, that this flooding event could correspond to the Garth tsunami, a paleotsunami named after Garth Loch in Shetland. Considering the potential impact of such a flooding event on the everyday lives of local foragers who dwelled in southwestern Norway, it is anticipated that this study could form a starting point for future case studies.

This study quantified the relative vulnerability of 3,141 counties in the United States. We built a comprehensive community vulnerability index (CCVI) that considers household, business, and public levels. Eighteen variables related to household socioeconomic characteristics, business size and diversity, local government economic size, social capital, and net immigration were used. In the existing vulnerability indices (CRE, SVI, and SoVI), the indices were constructed by using socioeconomic characteristics of the household. In addition to socioeconomic variables, this study sought to expand the concept of “place-based” by considering the business structure within the community and the potential ability to maintain the existing order of the community to construct a comprehensive index. Additionally, by providing the relative vulnerability of the community at each level (private, business, public), each dimension can provide evidence on which areas are more vulnerable and need remediation than others. We expect that the CCVI can be broadly extended to be used in various forms. In this study, we extend the vulnerability index by including exogenous variables such as climate change. In particular, the extended climate-enhanced CCVI in this study shows that the existing vulnerability index can be strengthened by incorporating extreme climate events.

Growing evidence suggests that psychedelic-assisted therapies can alleviate depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress, and substance use disorder, offering relatively safe profiles, enhanced efficacy, and lasting effects after a few applications. Athletes often experience high levels of stress and pressure, making them susceptible to these psychiatric conditions. However, the effects of psychedelic substances on athletic performance remain largely unknown. Before potential acceptance, evaluating their impact on physical and physiological measures beyond mental health outcomes is crucial. Here, we aim to explore this topic and highlight research directions to advance our understanding. Preclinical studies suggest that psilocybin/psilocin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), and ayahuasca possess anti-inflammatory and anti-nociceptive properties. Studies investigating the effects of classical psychedelics or 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) on factors such as muscle strength, motor coordination, locomotion, endurance, fluid and electrolyte balance, hormonal regulation, and metabolism are still scarce. While adhering to regulatory frameworks, further research in animal models, athletes, and non-athletes is needed to address these gaps, compare psychedelics with commonly used psychoactive drugs, and explore the potential prophylactic and regenerative benefits of specific interventions.

This paper examines responses to the COVID-19 pandemic from farmers in Japan. Because COVID-19 was most prevalent in Japanese urban centers and especially the Tokyo metropolitan area, farmers in rural communities in Kansai expressed less concern over infection compared to Kanto-area farmers who were more concerned with risk of infection. While some farmers expressed concern over economic losses from the closure of restaurants and schools, many interviewees had pre-established diverse market channels and thus could pivot their distribution streams during the pandemic. Farmers diverted produce typically for restaurants towards direct sales such as chokubaijyos (direct sales markets) or engaged in online platforms. Because of a lack of single stream distribution infrastructure set up for organic farmers as compared to conventional farmers, many of the interviewees already have robust distribution networks and tend to hold strong community ties with consumers and buyers in their region. We argue that the activities of these farmers demonstrate the resilience of local-scale food systems in Japan, because these networks help maintain food security and community relationships during times of crisis.

In the unfolding of a global pandemic that has wreaked havoc worldwide, another less obvious pandemic hovers overhead. This is what the United Nations is calling a ‘Shadow Pandemic.‘ A rise in domestic violence within households has been noted in Japan and other countries. The stay-at-home measures to prevent the spread of the infection have essentially kept victims trapped with abusive partners and few means of escaping to the often-closed manga cafes or women's shelters. In this dire time, Japanese laws offer only minimal protection. This article draws on insights from Nakajima Sachiko of NPO Resilience, which aims to spread awareness of domestic violence and the effects of this trauma. She shares her expertise in the field and experiences as a survivor herself on the mechanisms that exist in Japanese laws and society that have created increased vulnerability among victims. Domestic violence in Japan is an area needing stronger attention from the government and legal system.

Comprehending resilience in the face of mental health issues is important, especially for young people who deal with a variety of psychological pressures. This study aims to investigate the co-occurrence of several mental health conditions and the role of resilience as a potential intervention in youth 14–25 years in the Nairobi metropolitan area. We recruited 1,972 youths. The following self-administered instruments were used: resilience (ARM-R), hopelessness (BHS), depression (BDI, PHQ-9), PTSD (HTQ), loneliness (UCLA Loneliness Scale) and suicidality (C-SSRS). Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation and hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted on the data. The key findings are that depression and hopelessness showed a strong negative association with resilience. PTSD and recent suicidal ideation and behavior showed less negative association with resilience. Building resilience is an important intervention for the conditions reported in our study among the youth. This study contributes novel insights into the intersection of multiple psychological stressors and resilience, paving the way for more targeted, integrative mental health interventions.

Crises constitute a fascinating context in which to investigate the resilience of institutional arrangements, or their breakdown and change, and to shed light on the interplay between formal and informal institutions in this process. The papers in this symposium focus on crises from political power grab to economic shock and natural disasters. They focus on the differing impact of different crises or investigate the specific impact of one form of crises on formal and informal institutions or the negotiation process that allow them to coexist. Bringing them under one roof emphasises the diversity of lenses through which institutions can be conceptualised and operationalised. It also highlights some of the issues preventing meaningful comparisons across frameworks. Importantly, it also allows us to trace an agenda for research towards improving our understanding of when and how crises lead to change. We argue that an often under-studied aspect that could help to move towards a clearer taxonomy is to articulate more explicitly the agency of actors and the distribution of power within society and social groups.

This study examines the mediating role of horizontal trust and collective resilience in the relationship between organizational justice and job performance at the team level based on the HEalthy & Resilient Organizations Model (HERO) (Salanova et al., 2012). The sample consisted of 927 workers grouped into 100 work teams belonging to seven healthcare centers in Spain. The relationships among organizational justice, horizontal trust, collective resilience, and perceived job performance of work teams were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results revealed that the perceptions of justice and organizational trust positively impact job performance at the team level. Furthermore, the predictive role of horizontal trust in collective resilience was evidenced, with both variables mediating the relationship between the perception of justice and job performance of work teams. These findings underscore the significance of cultivating both horizontal trust and resilience in work teams, offering valuable insights for healthcare management and organizational psychology in highly complex environments such as healthcare organizations.