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The Yellow River Basin (YRB) is China's substantial energy consumption base. The issue of carbon emission efficiency directly affects the ecological protection and high-quality development of the YRB. It is the key to achieving carbon peak in 2030 and carbon neutralization in 2060 ("30.60") double carbon emission reduction targets. Therefore, taking YRB as the research object, this paper first calculates the carbon emission and the decoupling state in the YRB. Secondly, the super-efficiency slacks-based measurement (SE-SBM) model is combined with the Malmquist index to analyze the temporal and spatial evolution characteristics of YRB's carbon emission efficiency from static and dynamic perspectives. Thirdly, the dynamic evolution characteristics of carbon emission efficiency are analyzed with the help of the Kernel density function. Finally, the Tobit model analyzes the influencing factors of YRB's and China's carbon emission efficiency. The results show that: (1) Among the nine provinces of YRB, the decoupling state between carbon emissions and economic growth in most provinces changes from weak decoupling to strong decoupling, and the decoupling elasticity index shows a fluctuating downward trend. (2) There are significant differences in carbon emission efficiency among provinces, but on the whole, it shows a stable growth trend. The high-value area of carbon emission efficiency is increasing, and the phenomenon of two-level differentiation is improving. The decline of the technological progress index causes the Malmquist index in Qinghai and Ningxia. On the contrary, the rise of the Malmquist index in the other seven provinces is caused by improving the technical efficiency index. (3) Industrial structure, economic development, and industrialization are the main positive factors affecting YRB's carbon emission efficiency. Urbanization level, green development level, and energy consumption level are the leading negative indicators hindering YRB's improvement of carbon emission efficiency. Therefore, targeted emission reduction suggestions should be formulated according to YRB's resource endowment and development stage characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A scientific measurement of the amount of tradable water rights forms the premise for reaching an agreement in water rights trading. However, the existing measurement methods, based on water saving potential, still have problems caused by large computation workload and difficult-to-control errors. Conflicts also easily emerge between transferor and transferee during the execution of transaction agreements. This paper proposes a new method for measuring tradable water rights from the perspective of an assessment of the risk of water shortage for the transferor. The following describes the basic idea: An index system is established for the assessment of the water shortage risk of the transferor to identify water shortage risk categories. The impact of the water rights transaction volume on the transferor's water shortage risk category is analyzed under different incoming water frequencies. The transferor's water shortage risk threshold is set and a simulated annealing algorithm is designed to calculate the theoretical value of tradable water rights. The following summarizes the innovation of the proposed method: The water resource shortage risk evaluation index of the transferor is constructed based on water resource endowment, water supply, water demand, and water ecological environment of the transferor; then, a risk classification evaluation model of water resource shortage is established and a measurement method of tradable water rights is introduced. Comprehensive analysis of a case analysis of Helan County in the Ningxia Autonomous Region, China, shows that the recommended value of tradable water rights of Helan County is 40 million m3. Various methods are used to calculate the weights of evaluation indexes, which are compared to the measured results of tradable water rights; moreover, the sensitivity of the results is analyzed. The obtained results show that the use of water-saving potential to measure the amount of tradable water rights is feasible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, various kinds of remote sensing-based drought indexes have been proposed and widely used in the field of drought monitoring. However, the drought-related software and platform development lag behind the theoretical research. The current drought monitoring systems focus mainly on information management and publishing, and cannot implement professional drought monitoring or parameter inversion modelling, especially the models based on multi-dimensional feature space. In view of the above problems, this paper aims at fixing this gap with a component-based system named RSDMS to facilitate the application of drought monitoring by remote sensing. The system is designed and developed based on Component Object Model (COM) to ensure the flexibility and extendibility of modules. RSDMS realizes general image-related functions such as data management, image display, spatial reference management, image processing and analysis, and further provides drought monitoring and evaluation functions based on internal and external models. Finally, China’s Ningxia region is selected as the study area to validate the performance of RSDMS. The experimental results show that RSDMS provide an efficient and scalable support to agricultural drought monitoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To determine the prevalence of visual impairment and glasses ownership among Han Chinese and Hui minority junior high school children in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, China. Design: Population-based cross-sectional study. Methods: Vision screening was conducted on 20,376 children (age 12–15 years) in all 124 rural junior high schools in Ningxia. Personal and family characteristics, glasses ownership, and academic performance were assessed through a survey questionnaire and standardized mathematics test, respectively. Results: The prevalence of visual acuity (VA) ≤6/12 in either eye was significantly higher among Han (54.5%) than Hui (45.2%) children (P<0.001), and was significantly positively associated with age, female sex, Han ethnicity, parental outmigration for work, shorter time spent outside during recess, shorter time spent watching television and higher time spent studying. Among children with VA≤6/12 in both eyes, only 56.8% of Han and 41.5% of Hui children had glasses (P<0.001). Glasses ownership was significantly associated with worse vision, greater family wealth, female sex, higher test scores, age, parental outmigration for work, understanding of myopia and glasses, higher time spent studying and Han ethnicity. Conclusion: One of the first of its kind, this report on Han and Hui ethnic schoolchildren confirms a high prevalence of visual impairment among both populations, but slightly higher among the Han. Both groups, especially the Hui, have low rates of glasses ownership. Future interventions and policies designed to improve glasses usage should focus on populations with lower incomes and seek to correct erroneous beliefs about the safety of glasses and efficacy of traditional eye exercises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]