Developing interdisciplinary environmental frameworks

: Tapio Petri, Willamo Risto

Publisher: Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

: 2008

: AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment

: AMBIO

: 37

: 2

: 125

: 133

: 9

: 0044-7447

: 1654-7209

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1579/0044-7447(2008)37[125:DIEF]2.0.CO;2

The purpose of this article is to review interdisciplinary systemic frameworks of environmental protection and evaluate their use as tools, educational policyrnaking and education. We analyze the pressures-state-responses (PSR) framework of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the drive rs-pressuresstate-impact-response (DPSIR) framework developed in the European Environment Agency and a later environmental political dynamics framework developed by Schroll and Staerdahl. We then continue the discussion by introducing a comprehensive model, labeled as the environmental protection process (EPP) framework that can be used to analyze and teach why there are environmental problems, what are their characteristics, and in which ways they can be mitigated. The EPP model is used for classifying measures of coping with environmental problems. Finally, a submodel of individual and societal factors affecting human action is formed. Environmental issues of transport are used as an illustrative example. We hope to contribute a relevant way to outline a wide interdisciplinary picture of environmental problems and solutions.