Stilianos Tampakis

Hydropower dams constitute key components of sustainable energy and water resource management, while their long-term operation increasingly depends on social acceptance and local community support. Within this context, the current study investigates residents’ perceptions of the environmental, social, and economic advantages and adverse impacts associated with the operation of the Nestos River dams. It explores the role of the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) phenomenon in shaping local attitudes. Data were collected during 2020–2021, and a stratified random sampling design was applied, involving 1101 residents living in mountainous, semi-mountainous, and lowland areas of the Nestos River basin. Reliability analysis and factor analysis were employed to assess the consistency of responses and identify the underlying factors shaping residents’ perceptions. The results indicate that respondents recognize significant benefits associated with the dams, particularly clean energy production and the creation of lacustrine ecosystems, while simultaneously expressing concerns regarding the disruption of the river’s natural flow, biodiversity degradation, and landscape alteration. The findings also reveal complex, spatially differentiated NIMBY dynamics, suggesting that although dams are perceived as socially beneficial infrastructures, their localized impacts influence community acceptance. Overall, the study highlights the importance of incorporating local perceptions into the planning and management of hydraulic infrastructures and provides evidence supporting socially acceptable and sustainable approaches to existing and future dam projects.

Forests face significant pressures from human activities, mainly through deforestation and land-use changes driven by agricultural expansion. This study aims to conduct a literature review to identify and analyze the primary factors that have driven farmers to engage in deforestation and agricultural expansion over the past 25 years. The review followed the methodology proposed by Arksey and O’Malley, with an initial broad search followed by article selection and exclusion. The analysis of the results revealed interacting factors with varying intensities by region, extending to different levels. At the demographic level, factors such as gender, age, household composition, and education play a significant role. At the social level, factors are mainly related to migration, population growth, and the phenomenon of “imitation”. At the economic level, poverty, unemployment, the need for supplementary income, and the growing demand for cash crops are key drivers of agricultural expansion in forests. At the political level, state licensing of deforestation, either as part of poverty reduction strategies or to meet market demand, and the inability to impose sanctions, reinforce deforestation for agricultural cultivation. Finally, at the environmental level, factors such as climate change and soil fertility decline constitute another critical area of pressure on forest ecosystems.

Urban green infrastructure captures an appreciation of urban green as essential infrastructure that is as important to a good quality of urban life as technical or social infrastructures. The approach emphasizes the multitude of services and functions performed by urban green, all of which impact the quality of life and sustainability. We design green spaces; we pass from the meaning of the maintenance of a natural landscape to the designing and construction of an artificial landscape that makes the users feel close to nature or to a beautiful and useful environment. Regarding the landscapes of Kalamaria, most of the residents find them more artificial than natural, and the design of the green spaces in their municipality is simple. The unity between green spaces and neighboring buildings is also evaluated as important, and the functionality of the green spaces that are different spaces satisfies different users, which is considered important. Then, the respondents asked how important it is that urban green constitutes an imitation of nature. Also, the infrastructure is the dominant element of the park. There is unity between green spaces and neighboring buildings, and the green space helps with the socialization of immigrants and refugees.

The use of digital technologies in drama performances in education that address the sustainability issues that plague today’s world is highly acknowledged globally by the scientific community since digital technologies offer a variety of ways to provide students with an interactive and engaging learning experience. This article aims to present a literature review on drama/theatre performance in educational environments by applying digital technologies to increase students’ sustainability awareness. More specifically, this article presents a state-of-the-art study on the recent developments concerning digital drama performance and explores how the cultivation of sustainability consciousness by students in all educational contexts can be achieved. Additionally, it provides valuable insights into how combining digital drama performances and sustainability issues could improve crucial 21st-century skills for students at all levels of education. The dataset was collected using the Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar databases. This review is mainly interested in identifying the research gaps since the current literature focuses primarily on digital technologies in drama/theatre education. However, developing the sustainability awareness of students by performing digital drama seems to be under researched. The results of this study directly impact a wide range of educational experts, such as drama teachers, drama faculty members, drama education researchers, scholars, and theatre practitioners, including art critics, culture specialists, stage designers, drama directors, managers, consultants, and policymakers, to influence them to reflect and reconsider the potential benefits of introducing drama/theatre performance lessons in the official curriculum programs to motivate students to become aware of critical sustainable issues.

To satisfy their ever-increasing needs, humans are constantly exerting excessive pressure upon the environment, while now more than ever, the adoption of new development practices to halt environmental degradation is becoming necessary. Graduates from all disciplines should have environmental awareness, because their decisions as future professionals may affect the environment. If, however, we assume that environmental science graduates possess environmental knowledge, it is worth investigating whether this knowledge affects their environmental attitudes. Hence, the aim of this study is to compare the environmental attitudes of students attending environmental and non-environmental studies. To this end, a comparative study on environmental attitudes was conducted between students majoring in forestry and students majoring in literature studies at one of the largest universities in Greece. That is, the environmental attitudes of students whose discipline was closely related to the environment were compared to the attitudes of students whose discipline was unrelated to the environment. The results showed that students from both disciplines had positive environmental attitudes, but forestry students exhibited a discernibly higher level of environmental awareness, which can be ascribed to their participation in environmentally relevant courses. The insights gains from this study could be particularly useful to education policymakers and curriculum practitioners, since they provide evidence for the potential of curriculum content to shape pro-environmental attitudes.

One of the most recent and pressing issues for policymakers to address is the presence of wild boars in urban and rural areas. Their aggressive spread and invasion of human-populated areas have created an alarming problem as the coexistence of wild boars and people poses serious threats to human life and property. Human-caused factors, such as residential zone expansion and land use change, have exacerbated this problem. Furthermore, natural factors, such as predator reduction and climate change effects, create favorable conditions for population growth. This study sought to gain insights into citizens’ perspectives on a current issue, specifically wild boar colonization and coexistence in urban and rural settings. Between September 2021 and November 2022, a survey was conducted in two communities of northern and central Greece, addressing 800 citizens in total. Obtained through hierarchical log-linear analysis, factor analysis and two-step cluster analysis, the findings indicate that rural citizens appear to be more concerned about agricultural production losses and the high risk of road accidents, while the invasion-level perception was high in both areas. Intensive hunting has gained widespread acceptance as a management tool for wild boar populations in both urban and rural areas, while anthropocentric (EGO) and ecocentric (ECO) social groups have emerged.

Water management projects have an important role in regional environmental protection and socio-economic development. Environmental policies, strategies, and special measures are designed in order to balance the use and non-use values arising for the local communities. The region of Serres in Northern Greece hosts two wetland management projects—the artificial Lake Kerkini and the re-arrangement of Strymonas River. The case study aims to investigate the residents’ views and attitudes regarding these two water resources management projects, which significantly affect their socio-economic performance and produce several environmental impacts for the broader area. Simple random sampling was used and, by the application of reality and factor analyses along with the logit model support, significant insights were retrieved. The findings revealed that gender, age, education level, and marital status affect the residents’ perceived values for both projects and their contribution to local growth and could be utilized in policy making for the better organization of wetland management.

Healthcare environments should be designed and operate as healing places for all their users. Therefore, the design of outdoor and indoor spaces, has to be oriented towards distressing solutions. The employees’ occupational stress affects their feelings and in turn their services they provide. Thus, this study aimed at the evaluation of the General University Hospital of Alexandroupolis, Greece according to its employees’ views. With the use of two step cluster analysis and the hierarchical cluster analysis, important findings were derived, concerning the interior and landscape design of the healthcare environment. The hospital indoor and outdoor spaces were investigated in relation with environmental parameters and psychological effects on their users. The results have shown a lack of the appropriate green spaces—even though their beneficial role was acknowledged—and marginal satisfaction with available spaces. Conclusively, it should be noted that there is still room for improvements in both interior and outdoor premises of the hospital to reduce stress levels, especially for its nursing staff.