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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Environmental Systems Engineering
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1406376
This article is part of the Research Topic Environmental Impacts of Materials and their Life Cycle View all 8 articles

Visual Analysis of Diversity and Threat Status of Natural Materials for Musical Instruments

Provisionally accepted
Jakob Kusnick Jakob Kusnick 1*Silke Lichtenberg Silke Lichtenberg 2,3Daniel Wiegreffe Daniel Wiegreffe 4Elisabeth Huber-Sannwald Elisabeth Huber-Sannwald 5Udo Nehren Udo Nehren 2Stefan Jänicke Stefan Jänicke 1
  • 1 University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
  • 2 Institute for Technology and Resources Management in the Tropics and Subtropics, Cologne University of Applied Sciences, Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
  • 3 Department of Geography, Faculty of Arts, University of Passau, Passau, Bavaria, Germany
  • 4 Leipzig University, Leipzig, Lower Saxony, Germany
  • 5 Division of Environmental Sciences, San Luis Potosí Institute of Scientific Research and Technology, San Luis Potosí, Mexico

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    A classical symphony orchestra consists of up to 29 musical instruments manufactured from up to 758 distinct natural materials. The interrelationships between the extraction of raw materials for instrument making, the international trade conditions, and the protection status of endangered species and their ecosystems are highly complex and have yet to be sufficiently scientifically examined. However, rapidly progressing climate and ecological change call for sustainable solutions. To address this challenging task, we present MusEcology, a new interactive decision support system based on visualizations. The interactive visualizations offer entry points for users of various backgrounds to explore the interrelationships between musical instruments, natural resources and ecosystems. The tool's fundamental objectives are to guarantee that the (1) data processing correlates related data resources, that (2) visual interfaces and interaction schemes encourage new interdisciplinary research on complex systems interactions, and that (3) high-level decision-making is supported to identify alternative pathways towards sustainable instrument making.

    Keywords: visualization, musicology, Ecology, Geography, sustainability, interdisciplinarity, Natural materials, Threat Assessment Counts: 9935 Words

    Received: 25 Mar 2024; Accepted: 25 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Kusnick, Lichtenberg, Wiegreffe, Huber-Sannwald, Nehren and Jänicke. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Jakob Kusnick, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.