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Background: Defects in the Golgi enzyme beta-galactoside-alpha-2,3-sialyltransferase-III (ST3Gal-III) caused by biallelic ST3GAL3 gene variants are associated with human neurodevelopmental disorders. Although ST3GAL3 gene variants have been linked to developmental and/or epileptic encephalopathy 15 (DEE15), their presence has only been reported in nine patients; however, the real frequency may be masked by insufficient screening., Methods: Phenotypic information was collected from a male patient with severe psychomotor developmental delay and epileptic seizures, and genetic testing was done using whole exome sequencing. A molecular dynamics simulation analysis was performed to assess the potential impacts of the identified ST3GAL3 variants on the ST3Gal-III protein function, and a literature review was conducted to compare this case with previously described cases and assess disease manifestation and genetic characteristics., Results: The patient inherited compound heterozygous ST3GAL3 gene variants, NM_006279.5:c.809G>A (p.Arg270Gln) and c.921dupG (p.Thr308fs*8). Neither variant had been previously reported in the general population. The p.Arg270Gln variant disrupted a hydrogen bond in the simulated ST3Gal-III protein structure. Among 25 patients with ST3GAL3 gene defects, eight ST3GAL3 gene variants were identified, and five variants had DEE signs., Conclusion: Patients with DEE15 may have novel ST3GAL3 gene variants, and this study may be the first clinical report of their occurrence in a Chinese patient. These variants should be considered when evaluating patients presenting with unexplained early-onset epileptic encephalopathy, severe developmental delay, and/or intellectual disability., (© 2023 The Authors. Molecular Genetics & Genomic Medicine published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Purpose: There are major gaps in our knowledge of hereditary ocular conditions in the Asia-Pacific population, which comprises approximately 60% of the world's population. Therefore, a concerted regional effort is urgently needed to close this critical knowledge gap and apply precision medicine technology to improve the quality of lives of these patients in the Asia-Pacific region., Design: Multi-national, multi-center collaborative network., Methods: The Research Standing Committee of the Asia-Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology and the Asia-Pacific Society of Eye Genetics fostered this research collaboration, which brings together renowned institutions and experts for inherited eye diseases in the Asia-Pacific region. The immediate priority of the network will be inherited retinal diseases (IRDs), where there is a lack of detailed characterization of these conditions and in the number of established registries., Results: The network comprises 55 members from 35 centers, spanning 12 countries and regions, including Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Nepal, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand. The steering committee comprises ophthalmologists with experience in consortia for eye diseases in the Asia-Pacific region, leading ophthalmologists and vision scientists in the field of IRDs internationally, and ophthalmic geneticists., Conclusions: The Asia Pacific Inherited Eye Disease (APIED) network aims to (1) improve genotyping capabilities and expertise to increase early and accurate genetic diagnosis of IRDs, (2) harmonise deep phenotyping practices and utilization of ontological terms, and (3) establish high-quality, multi-user, federated disease registries that will facilitate patient care, genetic counseling, and research of IRDs regionally and internationally., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objective: We aimed to assess the relative importance of attributes and the willingness to pay for pharmacological therapies among patients with renal cell carcinoma in China., Methods: Patients with renal cell carcinoma completed a D-efficient-designed, discrete-choice experiment online survey that presented a series of ten trade-off questions and one examining scenario. Based on the literature review and consultations with patients with renal cell carcinoma and clinicians, each question included a pair of hypothetical renal cell carcinoma medication profiles characterized by seven attributes including progression-free survival, objective response rate, medication regimen, fatigue, gastrointestinal reaction, hand-foot syndrome, and monthly out-of-pocket costs. Relative importance and willingness to pay were calculated using coefficients estimated by mixed logit regression in the main analysis. Subgroup analyses were conducted considering the heterogeneity of the participants, based on sex, education level, and income level, using conditional logit regression., Results: The analysis incorporated responses from 182 Chinese respondents. Except for the medication regimen, all attributes were statistically significant. Progression-free survival was the most important attribute, followed by objective response rate, monthly out-of-pocket costs, fatigue, gastrointestinal reaction, and hand-foot syndrome. Patients were willing to pay ￥2010.51 ($298.30), ￥494.93 ($73.43) for 1 unit improvement of progression-free survival, and objective response rate, and￥7558.93 ($1121.50), ￥6927.24 ($1027.78) to avoid experiencing fatigue and gastrointestinal reaction, respectively. Differences in preferences and willingness to pay were found according to patients' gender, income, and education level., Conclusions: In China, patients with renal cell carcinoma preferred medications with better efficacy (objective response rate and progression-free survival) and lower out-of-pocket costs. Heterogeneity can be found in preferences and willingness to pay based on patients' gender, income, and education levels., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.)

Primary care is often the weakest link in health systems despite its acknowledged central importance in promoting population's health at economical cost. A key reason for the lacunae is that both scholars and practitioners working on the subject typically underestimate the enormity of the task and the range of complementary measures required to build an effective primary care system. The objective of the paper is to highlight theoretical gaps and practical limitations to strengthening primary care. The challenges and difficulties are illustrated through a case study of China where primary care continues to struggle despite the government's strong political, financial and policy support in recent years. In this paper, we review the development of primary health care in China and how it is governed, provided, and financed, highlighting the gaps and misalignments that undermine its performance. We argue that governance deficiencies coupled with flawed financing and payments arrangements are major impediments to improving performance. China's experience offers valuable lessons for other governments seeking to strengthen primary health care.

Extracting entity relations from unstructured Chinese electronic medical records is an important task in medical information extraction. However, Chinese electronic medical records mostly have document-level volumes, and existing models are either unable to handle long text sequences or exhibit poor performance. This paper proposes a neural network based on feature augmentation and cascade binary tagging framework. First, we utilize a pre-trained model to tokenize the original text and obtain word embedding vectors. Second, the word vectors are fed into the feature augmentation network and fused with the original features and position features. Finally, the cascade binary tagging decoder generates the results. In the current work, we built a Chinese document-level electronic medical record dataset named VSCMeD, which contains 595 real electronic medical records from vascular surgery patients. The experimental results show that the model achieves a precision of 87.82% and recall of 88.47%. It is also verified on another Chinese medical dataset CMeIE-V2 that the model achieves a precision of 54.51% and recall of 48.63%.

Chemotherapy-induced leukopenia is a common side effect of cytotoxic anticancer drugs. It can deprive patients of treatment opportunities, resulting in the delay, reduction, or discontinuation of chemotherapy or other anticancer drug administration. Two researchers searched English, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean electronic databases, without limiting the time period and language, using search terms such as "Bojungikgi," "WBC," "leuko," and "neutrop." Among the human randomized controlled studies in which Bojungikgi-tang was administered to patients who underwent chemotherapy, studies reporting leukopenia-related outcomes were selected, and data extraction, bias risk assessment, and meta-analysis were performed on the selected papers. Ten studies were selected, and a systematic review with meta-analysis was conducted. Nine papers were published in China and the total number of participants was 715. As a result of administering Bojungikgi-tang to these patients, the number of patients with chemotherapy-induced leukopenia significantly decreased (OR: 0.41, 95% CI: 0.27-0.61, P  = .0001, I 2  = 35%). Further, white blood cell counts were compared with that of the control group, and it showed an effect on prevention (MD: 0.64, 95% CI: 0.46-0.83, P  < .00001, I 2  = 90%). A pronounced effect was observed, especially when administered after a diagnosis based on the pattern identification, such as Qi deficiency. (OR: 0.32, 95% CI: 0.18-0.58, P  = .0002, I 2  = 0%). However, all studies had a high risk of bias due to non-blinding, and most studies had a high or uncertain risk of bias in creating random assignment orders and concealing them. Bojungikgi-tang has an effect on the prevention and treatment of chemotherapy-induced leukopenia. The effect rate can be increased when administered after proper diagnosis, and the possibility of adverse reactions and side effects is lower than that of Granulocyte-Colony Stimulating Factor (G-CSF) injection. Bojungikgi-tang appears to be useful in the treatment and prevention of leukopenia caused by cytotoxic anticancer drugs. However, it is necessary to conduct high-quality clinical studies in the future, considering the possibility of local and language bias, heterogeneity of carcinoma and intervention, and the risk of bias.Registration: PROSPERO CRD4202341054., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Objectives: The purpose of this research is to summarize the structure of radiomics-based knowledge and to explore potential trends and priorities by using bibliometric analysis. Methods: Select radiomics-related publications from 2012 to October 2022 from the Science Core Collection Web site. Use VOSviewer (version 1.6.18), CiteSpace (version 6.1.3), Tableau (version 2022), Microsoft Excel and Rstudio's free online platforms (http://bibliometric.com) for co-writing, co-citing, and co-occurrence analysis of countries, institutions, authors, references, and keywords in the field. The visual analysis is also carried out on it. Results: The study included 6428 articles. Since 2012, there has been an increase in research papers based on radiomics. Judging by publications, China has made the largest contribution in this area. We identify the most productive institutions and authors as Fudan University and Tianjie. The top three magazines with the most publications are《FRONTIERS IN ONCOLOGY》, 《EUROPEAN RADIOLOGY》, and 《CANCERS》. According to the results of reference and keyword analysis, "deep learning, nomogram, ultrasound, f-18-fdg, machine learning, covid-19, radiogenomics" has been determined as the main research direction in the future. Conclusion: Radiomics is in a phase of vigorous development with broad prospects. Cross-border cooperation between countries and institutions should be strengthened in the future. It can be predicted that the development of deep learning-based models and multimodal fusion models will be the focus of future research. Advances in knowledge: This study explores the current state of research and hot spots in the field of radiomics from multiple perspectives, comprehensively, and objectively reflecting the evolving trends in imaging-related research and providing a reference for future research., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Introduction: Over the last decade, the emergence and spread of personalized medicine (PM) have defined a substantial revolution in healthcare. In principle, healthcare system sustainability is challenged by the investments required for research and development, as well as the adoption of PM techniques in routine clinical care. The "Integrating China in the International Consortium for Personalized Medicine" (IC2PerMed) EU-funded project aims to integrate China into the "International Consortium for Personalized Medicine" (ICPerMed). IC2PerMed aims to align the EU and China's research agendas in this field to enable a swift development of approaches in the EU and China with strong leverage upon EU-Chinese collaborations., Methods: Within this project, we first mapped relevant policies on PM in both the EU and China, and then we involved European and Chinese experts in PM in workshops and Delphi surveys in order to identify relevant priorities for the implementation of PM in sustainable healthcare., Results: As a result of this process, we identified nine overarching priorities, each addressing specific aspects of the sustainability of healthcare systems and PM implementation, with the main goal of supporting policymakers in integrating PM approaches in the EU and China., Discussion/conclusion: The implementation of PM in health systems is appealing in terms of improved accuracy in diagnostics, treatment, and prevention of disease, as well as reduction of the side effects resulting from inefficient use of drugs. Research, development, and implementation of needed techniques require time and resources that can slow the adoption of PM in healthcare systems. The nine priorities we identified address some of the most critical points, trying to lay the foundations for a comprehensive approach., (© 2023 The Author(s). Published by S. Karger AG, Basel.)

Air pollution is one of the serious environmental problems facing the world. This paper systematically investigates the impact and transmission mechanism of the construction of national eco-industrial parks (NEDPs) on urban air pollution based on Chinese city-level panel data from 2003 to 2021 using a staggered difference-in-differences (staggered DID) model. It is found that the construction of NEDP significantly reduces urban air pollution, a conclusion supported by the negative weight diagnostic test and two types of robust DID estimators. Mechanism analyses indicate that NEDP construction reduces urban air pollution mainly by improving regional environmental regulation, promoting green technology innovation and improving energy structure. In addition, the mitigation effect of NEDP construction on urban air pollution is heterogeneous by policy intensity, city resource endowment, city size and administrative status. Further tests show that the institutional environment enhances the air pollution mitigation effect of NEDP construction and that the better the degree of marketization, property rights system, legal system and market development in the place where the policy is implemented, the more conducive it is to amplify the air pollution suppression effect brought about by NEDP construction. Developing economies should take complete account of the characteristics of different regions when implementing place-based green policies to achieve synergistic development of the environment and the economy., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

This paper presents the landscape of research on airborne microplastics and nanoplastics (MPs/NPs) according to the bibliometric analysis of 147 documents issued between 2015 and 2021, extracted from the Web of Science database. The publications on airborne MPs/NPs have increased rapidly from 2015 onwards, which is largely due to the existence of funding support. Science of the Total Environment is one of the prominent journals in publishing related papers. China, England, the USA, and European Countries have produced a significant output of airborne MP/NP research works, which is associated with the availability of funding agencies regionally or nationally. The research hotspot on the topic ranges from the transport of airborne MPs/NPs to their deposition in the terrestrial or aquatic environments, along with the contamination of samples by indoor MPs/NPs. Most of the publications are either research or review papers related to MPs/NPs. It is crucial to share the understanding of global plastic pollution and its unfavorable effects on humankind by promoting awareness of the existence and impact of MPs/NPs. Funding agencies are vital in boosting the research development of airborne MPs/NPs. Some countries that are lacking funding support were able to publish research findings related to the field of interest, however, with lesser research output. Without sufficient fundings, some impactful publications may not be able to carry a substantial impact in sharing the findings and discoveries with the mass public., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The accurate and efficient prediction of chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) concentration is crucial for the early detection of algal blooms in reservoirs. Nevertheless, predicting Chl-a concentration in multivariate time series poses a significant challenge due to the complex interrelationships within the aquatic environment and the discrete and non-stationary nature of online monitoring of water quality data. To address the aforementioned issue, this paper proposes a novel prediction model named SGMD-KPCA-BiLSTM (SKB) for predicting Chl-a concentration. The model combines two-stage data processing and machine learning (ML). To capture nonlinear relationships in multivariate time series data, the optimal data subset is determined by combining symplectic geometry mode decomposition (SGMD) and kernel principal component analysis (KPCA). This subset is then input into a bidirectional long short-term memory (BiLSTM) model, and the model's hyperparameters are optimized using the sparrow search algorithm (SSA) to improve the accuracy of predictions. The performance of the model was evaluated at Qiaodian Reservoir in Shandong, China. To assess its superiority, the evaluation criteria included the root mean square error (RMSE), mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), mean absolute error (MAE), coefficient of determination (R 2 ), frequency histograms of the prediction error, and the Taylor diagram. The prediction performance of five single models, namely the back-propagation (BP) neural network, support vector regression (SVR), long short-term memory (LSTM), convolutional neural network with long short-term memory (CNN-LSTM), and BiLSTM, as well as three hybrid models, namely SGMD-LSTM, SGMD-KPCA-LSTM, and SGMD-BiLSTM, were compared against the SKB model. The results demonstrated that the SKB model performs best in predicting Chl-a concentration (R 2  = 96.19%, RMSE = 1.05, MAE = 0.65, MAPE = 0.08). It significantly reduced the prediction error compared to other models for comparison. Furthermore, the multi-step predictive capabilities of the SKB model are also discussed. The analysis shows a decline in predictive performance with larger prediction time steps, and the SKB model exhibits slightly superior performance compared to the other model at corresponding prediction intervals. The model has significant advantages in terms of its ability to accurately predict the non-smooth and nonlinear Chl-a sequences observed by the online monitoring system. This study presents a potential solution for controlling and preventing reservoir eutrophication, as well as an innovative approach for predicting water quality., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Increased CO 2 emissions from urban energy consumption pose a significant challenge to regional carbon mitigation policies. In this paper, we integrated two nighttime light (NTL) data: the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) Operational Linescan System (OLS) and the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) composite data to estimate the energy carbon emissions from 2000 to 2019. Then the spatiotemporal dynamics of carbon footprint and deficit in the Yellow River Basin were analyzed at the provincial, municipal, and county scales combined with NPP data. The study shows that (1) the total amount of energy consumption CO 2 emissions in the Yellow River Basin had increased from 1332 Mt in 2000 to 6469 Mt in 2019, but the average annual growth rate slowed down after 2010 from 11.5 to 5.61%. (2) From 2000 to 2018, the provinces with the highest carbon footprint and carbon deficit were concentrated in Inner Mongolia and Shanxi. In 2018, Inner Mongolia's carbon footprint was 1366.91 × 10 4 km 2 , accounting for 22.8% of the total. Cities with high carbon footprint were mainly economic centers and energy-intensive areas of various provinces. High-carbon deficit counties were mainly distributed in the western region. In 2018, 954 counties exhibited carbon deficits. (3) The carbon footprint in the Yellow River Basin at the municipal and county scales have a significant spatial correlation. The H-H clusters of the carbon footprint on the municipal scale were distributed in the middle reaches of the Yellow River Basin. At the county scale, the L-L clusters were mainly in Sichuan and eastern Henan regions. Through the analysis of the spatial and temporal evolution of carbon footprint and carbon deficit in the Yellow River Basin, it is significant to measure the degree of comprehensive coordination of carbon sources and sinks in the basin, to grasp the differences in the level of regional carbon emissions, and to promote synergistic regional governance, assist in the formulation of more precise carbon emission reduction policies, and to promote green and high-quality development., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Amid the flourishing digital economy, digital finance overcomes the constraints of the conventional financial model and largely improves the supply efficiency and use of funds. This provides new opportunities for manufacturing corporations to improve their green innovation efficiency. Employing Chinese Shenzhen and Shanghai A-share listed manufacturing corporations between 2011 and 2021, this paper conducts an empirical analysis to study the effect of digital finance on corporate green innovation efficiency. Discoveries suggest that digital finance significantly improves manufacturing corporations' green innovation efficiency. After a few robustness tests, the results are still accurate. According to a mechanism analysis, digital finance increases the effectiveness of green innovation in manufacturing corporations by removing financing constraints. According to the heterogeneity analysis, the impact of digital finance on manufacturing corporations exhibits distinctive financial and geographical regional heterogeneity, particularly accentuated in Zhejiang Province and the central and western regions. This paper can provide a valuable reference for digital finance in supporting manufacturing corporations in green innovation ventures and improving the level of green innovation in the context of digitalization., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

In the process of coal mining, prevention and control of water hazard is essential. It is the precondition for water hazard control to detect and determine the distribution of underground water-conducting channels. In urban environments, traditional methods such as active source seismic exploration and transient electromagnetic exploration commonly used in the field are difficult to carry out effectively due to various factors. In this paper, the microtremor survey method (MSM) and the opposing coils transient electromagnetic method (OCTEM) are adapted to conduct the surface exploration of the coal mine water-conducting channels in the urban environment. Combined with the detection results of the low-velocity area and the low-resistivity area, the distribution of water-conducting channels is preliminarily analyzed and determined, which is basically consistent with the drilling and coring results. It verifies the feasibility and accuracy of the comprehensive exploration method used in this paper., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

This paper estimates the influences of different industries on the carbon prices and selects the industries with high market power in the carbon market. To realize price discovery in the carbon market and improve the market efficiency, we suggest that industries with higher market power should be included in the market prior to other industries. Using the LASSO regression to analyze the data from the pilot markets of China's ETS and related industrial product outputs, we find that among all related industries, the petrochemical and chemical industries affect the carbon price the most and hence should be included in China's ETS with priority. The power generation industry, though regarded as the major entity of emission control, imposes weaker influences on the carbon price. Industries that may be incorporated in China's ETS later include the transportation equipment manufacturing and the mining and metal industries., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Population aging and carbon emissions are critical issues for China's development. As an enormous complex system, the population and the carbon emission development process have non-negligible differences in time, space, and speed. Therefore, this paper first demonstrates the spatial and temporal correlation between population aging and carbon emissions from 1995 to 2020, then uses the allometric growth analysis model to make a cross-sectional temporal comparison and a vertical spatial comparison of the relationship and development rate of the two, and finally uses the ridge regression model to determine the forces and interaction mechanisms of the factors influencing the relationship between population aging and carbon emissions at allometric rates. The results show that (1) China has a long-term positive temporal correlation effect relationship between population aging and carbon emissions from 1995 to 2020, and the overall correlation is high. The spatial correlation intensity between population aging and carbon emissions varies significantly across Chinese provinces, with a general spatial distribution trend of high in the south, low in the north, and prominent in the center. (2) China's population aging and carbon emissions mainly show a negative allometric growth type of relationship, i.e., a strong trend of population aging expansion and a strengthening trend of carbon emission system shrinking. The number of provinces with negative allometric growth is gradually increasing, mainly in North, East, Central, and Southwest China. (3) From 1995-2010 period to the 2011-2020 period, the influence of the factors of the population, production, and economic dimensions on the population aging index and the carbon emission allometric scalar index gradually weakened, and the influence of the consumption and technology dimensions increased significantly. The factors on the population and consumption side of the dimension mainly contribute to the expansion of carbon emissions and drive positive allometric growth. The production side, the economic structure, and technology dimension factors drive negative allometric growth. The paper fully explores the bidirectional correlation, differential development trend, and interaction mechanism between the two systems of population and carbon emissions and effectively compensates for the lack of research content in terms of elemental correlation, spatial and temporal connection, and speed synergy., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Country risk, encompassing political, economic, and financial dimensions, represents a burgeoning area of research in contemporary academia. However, its relation with energy technology remains relatively unexplored. Unlike previous studies, the current study enhances the extant literature by investigating the influence of political, economic, and financial risk factors, in addition to GDP, on energy technology advancements within the context of China from 1990 to 2021. The authors employ time series data and select the most suitable econometric techniques for analyzing long-term relationships, such as quantile regression. This approach allows them to track the evolution of these variables, thereby offering valuable empirical insights. The study's main findings are as follows: The Johansen cointegration tests confirm the existence of a long-run relationship among the variables under consideration. Furthermore, the quantile regression shows that political and economic risks reduce energy technology. In contrast, other variables, such as financial risk and GDP contribute positively to developing energy technology within the Chinese economy. These findings offer valuable insights for policymakers emphasizing the need to mitigate political and economic risks to facilitate future investment in energy technology., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

This paper attempts to investigate how the rapid development of China's environmental policy contributes to the changes in China's labour market. We first categorise the environmental regulations into (i) command-and-control policies, (ii) economic incentive policies, and (iii) voluntary environmental agreements (VEAs). Then, we use the provincial panel data over the 2000-2015 period to estimate the effect of alternative environmental regulations on employment in China. The results show that alternative environmental regulations have different impacts on employment. This difference even exists within the same group of environmental policies. Amongst the command-and-control policies, the three simultaneities policy leads to less employment, while the deadline governance systems increase employment. For economic incentive policies, higher environmental tax leads to lower employment, while more funding for environmental research promotes employment. The results also show that more VEAs reduced labour demand. In addition, the dynamic impact and regional heterogeneity of environmental regulations on employment are confirmed by the empirical estimation. Specifically, the economic incentive policies significantly impact employment in Central and Western China, whereas they have a non-significant impact on employment in Eastern China. This finding confirms that economic development impacts the relationship between environmental regulations and employment., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

To increase the degree of implementation of the rural revitalization strategy, it is crucial to conduct a scientific investigation of the relationship between fiscal policy, fiscal decentralization, green digital management, and contract selection. This research develops an analytical framework for the application of fiscal policy and the choice of cooperative association contracts based on the contract theory. On the basis of a theoretical analysis of the external factors that influence the choice of residents' cooperative association contract and behavior, it goes on to investigate the interest game relationship and stability of three different cooperative associations (production type, service type, and industrial chain type). Additionally, it runs an empirical test using survey information from cooperative associations in China's Gansu Province. The findings indicate that the cooperative association is more likely to select the factor contract model depending on the strength of the fiscal policy support, the union's brand influence, and the regional market share change of the primary products. Evolutionary equilibrium is inhibited by the association's input costs, but a stable contract is created more favorably the more average the cost distribution is. The stability of the contract and its detrimental effects on pro-environmental behavior are worse the more damage other residents' breaches of the contract have caused. The research findings in this paper may serve as a basis for decision-making and a source of information for encouraging the high-quality growth of cooperative groups., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

When the incentive mechanism of green finance fails to fully promote green technology innovation in industrial enterprises, local government environmental regulations become an important tool in correcting this market failure. However, due to the "follow the cost" hypothesis, the moderating effect of the local government environmental regulation is heterogeneous. In order to explore the impact mechanism of green finance development on the efficiency of green technology innovation in industrial enterprises, spatial effects as well as the heterogeneous moderating effect of local government environmental regulation, this paper systematically evaluates the development level of green finance in 30 provinces in China from 2009 to 2019. It estimates the efficiency of green technology innovation in industrial enterprises using the super-efficiency SBM model, and empirically analyzes the impact mechanism and moderating effect using the spatial Durbin model. The results show that: (1) green finance not only positively impacts the efficiency improvement of green technology innovation in industrial enterprises but also has significant spatial spillover effects; (2) local government environmental regulation has a nonlinear "inverted U-shaped" moderating effect between the green finance development and the efficiency of green technology innovation in industrial enterprises. Based on the research conclusions, this paper proposes policy recommendations from the perspectives of deepening the regional connectivity of green finance and promoting joint regulation by local governments., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Financial performance is a critical aspect of a company's overall health and sustainability. It directly influences investor decisions, stock market performance, credit ratings, and the company's ability to access capital. Corporate financial performance is influenced by multitude of facts, both internal and external such as disclosure of the information, and social and environmental factors. On the ground of the facts, we aimed to investigate non-financial firms that belong to Asian economies affected by climate policy uncertainty and corporate social responsibility disclosures in terms of their financial performance. To conduct quantitative study analysis, we used the two effective statistical tools such as two-stage regression method and generalized method of movement (GMM). Our results show that corporate high value of social responsibility disclosure and climate policy uncertainty has significant negative impact on return on asset (ROA) of the listed organizations of China, Pakistan, and India. Moreover, CSR disclosure attributes higher values such as social (SC) and governance score (GOV), and climate policy uncertainty (CPU) has significant negative relationship with return on equity (ROE) and earning per share (EPS) respectively, while a higher value of ESG total score and the environmental (ENV) score has a significant positive impact on ROE and EPS. Additionally, the research concludes that climate policy uncertainty is a key factor that motivates CSR disclosure practices, which ultimately improves corporate financial performance. Moreover, we concluded from our finding that the climate policy uncertainty creates ambiguity surrounding government regulations, international agreements, or market mechanisms that affect financial performance. Moreover, environmental disclosure information that has the large part in total ESG scores attract the investors around the globe which leads to rise in the financial performance, while the other attributes of the CSR disclosure decrease performance. This study advocated the great implications for researchers, investors, the government, and regulatory authorities. Policy makers can make the policy about the CSR disclosure for creating the good image of the organization to attract investors around the globe., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

It is crucial for the development of carbon reduction strategies to accurately examine the spatial distribution of carbon emissions. Limited by data availability and lack of industry segmentation, previous studies attempting to model spatial carbon emissions still suffer from significant uncertainty. Taking Pudong New Area as an example, with the help of multi-source data, this paper proposed a research framework for the amount calculation and spatial distribution simulation of its CO 2 emissions at the scale of urban functional zones (UFZs). The methods used in this study were based on mapping relations among the locations of geographic entities and data of multiple sources, using the coefficient method recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to calculate emissions. The results showed that the emission intensity of industrial zones and transport zones was much higher than that of other UFZs. In addition, Moran's I test indicated that there was a positive spatial autocorrelation in high emission zones, especially located in industrial zones. The spatial analysis of CO 2 emissions at the UFZ scale deepened the consideration of spatial heterogeneity, which could contribute to the management of low carbon city and the optimal implementation of energy allocation., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The export green-sophistication (EGS) is not only an important engine for the high-quality development of China's economy but also the external embodiment of the core international competitiveness and the key to resisting external competition and realizing the upgrade of the value chain. Using the database of China's digital finance development, China's A-share listed enterprises, and the China Customs database, we test the relationship between digital finance (DF) and the EGS of enterprises. It shows that DF significantly promotes listed enterprises' EGS, and compared to the depth of use of DF and digitization degree of DF, the promotion effect of coverage breadth of DF is the most significant. The heterogeneity analysis shows that the positive effect is more conspicuous for promoting the EGS in private enterprises, general trade enterprises, central and western regions' enterprises, and enterprises exporting to developed countries. The mechanism test finds that alleviating financing constraints and promoting green technological innovation are the two channels for DF to promote the enterprises' EGS. This study not only advances the understanding of the economic effects of DF but also implies the green transformation of China's exports., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

With increasing environmental degradation, green finance and green innovation have attracted the attention of policymakers and industries. However, the impact of green finance on corporate green innovation is still unexplored. Based on signal theory, this study analyzes the mixed effect of green finance on green innovation in enterprises. We use data from 31 provinces (333 cities in total) in China in 2021 and use a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis method. Green finance factors include green credit, green bond, green investment, green insurance, and green subsidy. Our research findings are as follows: Firstly, green innovation in businesses is not a product of a single antecedent situation but rather the interaction of several antecedent conditions. Green insurance and green subsidy are the core prerequisites for high green innovation in enterprises, and green credit plays an auxiliary role. Secondly, when there is a lack of green insurance, green bonds and green subsidies play a key role, leading to a high level of green innovation in businesses. Thirdly, the impact of various antecedents on the level of green innovation performance in enterprises is asymmetric. Policymakers should fully leverage the effect of green subsidy signals and minimize the risks of green innovation by expanding financing channels. Our findings enrich the literature on green innovation and finance and provide beneficial practical insights for green innovation in enterprises., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The correlation between polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and organic carbon is an important indicator of the marine environment. In this paper, twenty-six surface sediment samples were collected from the Bohai Sea and the North Yellow Sea as the study area, and the contents of sixteen PAHs ranged from 71.34 ng·g -1 to 240.78 ng·g -1 with an average of 143.26 ng·g -1 by gas chromatography. The source analysis indicated the source of PAHs in the surface sediments of the study area was more complex, and the percentage of combustion sources was higher than that of petroleum sources, which might cause less negative ecological risks. The average content of total organic carbon (TOC) was 5.25%, as determined by automatic potentiometric titration, and the content of TOC was higher in the Bohai Sea than in the North Yellow Sea. TOC was significantly correlated with HWM-PAHs but was not correlated with LWM-PAHs, which proved organic matter was more effective in controlling high-molecular-weight PAHs than low-molecular-weight PAHs in the surface sediments of the Bohai Sea and the North Yellow Sea., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Electric vehicles and gasoline vehicles are substitutes for each other, and the cost of fuel is an important factor when consumers are faced with choices. Understanding the influence of changes in gasoline prices and charging prices on electric vehicle sales is of reference significance for promoting electric vehicles in the private sector. This paper uses data covering 212 prefecture-level cities from January, 2020, to August, 2022, for analysis, and the results show that different income groups have different sensitivities to the difference in oil and electricity prices. Additionally, changes in gasoline prices and charging prices will significantly affect electric vehicle sales in low-income and middle-income cities, electric vehicle sales in high-income cities will not be affected. Compared with nonpilot cities, residents of pilot cities are more sensitive to fuel price changes, indicating that the policy basis has a certain positive effect on the promotion of electric vehicles. It is recommended to consider the income status of regional residents when formulating policies for the use of electric vehicles. At the same time, publicity efforts should be increased to highlight the gap between the cost of fuel vehicles and electric vehicles., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The core of the concept of nature-based solutions (NBS) is ecological protection, which is the same direction as China's double-carbon goal and has attracted much attention in China. Ecological ditch sewage treatment technology has been widely used in controlling agricultural non-point source pollution because of its advantages of high pollutant removal efficiency and low energy consumption. Suppose the NBS concept of sustainable management, restoration, and ecological protection is integrated into the research and development and application of ecological ditch technology. In that case, it can not only improve the effective removal of pollutants, achieve the purpose of recycling water resources and nutrient elements, but also realize economic, environmental, and social benefits. This paper describes the ecosystem service functions provided by ecological ditches in detail, evaluates their economic values through literatures review, so as to raise people's awareness of natural resource conservation and realize the sustainable management of ecological ditches., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

As a resource production factor in environmental governance activities, can green credit help reduce smog pollution? Based on China's provincial panel data from 2006 to 2019, this paper empirically tests the impact of green credit on smog pollution by using an OLS regression model and a spatial Durbin model. The results show that green credit helps to reduce smog pollution overall; Industrial structure upgrading and green technology innovation are two critical paths for green credit to reduce smog pollution. The analysis of period heterogeneity finds that the descending effect of green credit on smog pollution becomes more significant after the transformation of China's economic development stage. The regional heterogeneity analysis finds that the descending effect of green credit on smog pollution is more significant in non-low-carbon pilot provinces and regions with lower economic development levels. In addition, green credit not only helps to reduce local smog pollution but also has a spatial spillover effect of "benefiting thy neighbors" on smog pollution in geographically neighboring areas. This study provides important inspiration for the government to further promote the innovation of green financial instruments and promote the improvement of environmental governance performance, provides decision-making references for different regions to implement differentiated green credit strategies to improve ambient air quality, and provides an experience reference for the development of green finance and environmental governance in emerging market countries., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Taking the green credit policy in 2012 as a quasi-natural experiment, this paper uses the difference-in-differences method to explore the impact of green credit policy on enterprises' financial asset allocation and the moderating effect of government subsidy. We find that green credit policy significantly promotes the financial asset allocation of heavy-polluting enterprises, which is mainly reflected in short-term liquid financial investment, thus supporting the precautionary motivation of holding financial assets. The mechanism analysis shows that green credit policy promotes the financial asset allocation of heavy-polluting enterprises by reducing the scale of debt financing and increasing the financing cost. Government subsidy can significantly weaken the promoting effect of green credit policy on enterprises' financial asset allocation, and there is heterogeneity due to the regional environmental regulation intensity and financial development level. Further analysis shows that the negative moderating effect of government subsidy on green credit policy and enterprises' financial asset allocation significantly promotes the "shifting form virtual to real" of heavy polluting enterprises by reducing financial asset allocation. This paper discusses the impact of green credit policy on financial asset allocation of heavy-polluting enterprises in China and further clarifies the significant role of government subsidy in the process, so as to provide suggestions for government to control the "shifting from real to virtual" of enterprises. The results also provide an important reference for countries, especially developing countries, to implement green credit policy and government subsidy to achieve sustainable economic development., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Northern cities in China have frequently suffered from ice and snow disasters. On the other hand, Harbin mainly relies on coal-fired plants for heating during the winter time. However, coal-fired plants produce a significant amount of air pollution through the production of numerous hazardous gases. This thesis proposed an urban energy recycling system that uses waste gas from heating facilities to recycle waste heat and reduce air pollution in northern cities during the winter. This research made a hypothesis that wintertime ice and snow on city streets could be melted by using waste heat of waste gases from heating industries. The methodology of this research can be divided into three parts: Firstly, the principle of the energy recycling system is designed based on investigation. Secondly, a simulation experiment is used to analyze the system's difficulties. According to the experiment, when an icy road is far away from the heating industry, ice melting efficiency is low. Finally, this research proposed a method for system improvement based on the findings of the experiment. The system's environmental and social benefits will likely lead to its future application in northern Chinese cities even if there are many application-related difficulties, such as the high cost of construction., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Terrestrialecosystems are significant carbon sinks and are crucial for understanding the regional and global carbon cycles, energy flow, and climate change. As land use change is a significant process affecting ecosystem carbon stocks and striving for land degradation neutrality (LDN), studying it is essential for comprehending the evolution of regional carbon sink functions and achieving sustainable development goals. The drastically diverse land use patterns in each of the study area's regions resulted in significant differences in carbon stock. This study explores the evolution traits of carbon stocks based on land use data and their driving mechanisms in Chongqing during the past 30 years by using spatial analysis, the InVEST model, and geographic probes. The results demonstrate that from 1990 to 2020, land degradation in Chongqing was made worse by the demand for land for construction land, but the strategy of converting cropland back to forests raised the carbon stock of forest land. The overall result is a decrease in total carbon stocks of 5.1078 Tg or 1.5%. The main pathway for carbon loss pathway in the evolution of carbon stock is the conversion of cropland to construction land, and the primary carbon compensation pathway is the conversion of grassland and cropland to forest land, with a spatial distribution characterized by "higher in the whole area and obvious local differences." The land use intensity index has the most significant influence on the evolution of carbon stock. Moreover, the interaction of pairwise factors played a more important role in affecting the evolution of carbon stocks than did each factor individually. The case study in this paper shows that land use change is a significant driving mechanism for the evolution of carbon stock, and the development of a driving model theory is appropriate for deciphering the trajectory of carbon stock evolution and offering research suggestions for other regions., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Under the simultaneous demands of combating environmental pollution and decreased carbon emissions, it is critical to investigate the combined effect of agricultural contamination reduction and fiscal policy carbon reduction to support and promote green agriculture and low-carbon transformation. Based on provincial panel data of 2007 to 2020 in China, this paper employs the spatial Dubin model to empirically examine the pollution reduction and carbon reduction effects of fiscal policies supporting agriculture, as well as calculating the synergistic effect of pollution reduction and carbon reduction. Our study's findings reveal that non-point source agricultural pollution and agricultural carbon emissions have a tendency of growing and subsequently reducing, such as increasing from 2007 to 2015 and decreasing from 2016 to 2020. Second, results demonstrate that agricultural carbon emissions and agricultural pollution have a positive geographical dependency in each province, and fiscal policies supporting agriculture have high-high and low-low spatial clustering features. Furthermore, fiscal policies that promote agriculture can lower local agricultural carbon emissions and pollution while also having a considerable beneficial spillover impact on neighboring provinces. According to the study findings, the fiscal policy for supporting agriculture has a negative pollution reduction impact and a positive synergistic effect, resulting in a synergistic effect of agricultural pollution reduction and carbon reduction. The outcomes of this study can serve to promote carbon-reduction measures and provide recommendations for future policy development., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

In order to analyze what factors may affect the role of carbon trading pilot in promoting total factor productivity, this paper constructs DID model combining information of listed companies with city and industry characteristics. The moderating effect model is used to research the influence of firms' induced behavior. The results show that (1) the characteristics of a city can influence the impact of carbon trading pilot, which is associated with the city's dominant industry, resource endowment, and geographical location; (2) the effect of carbon trading pilot is heterogeneous, primarily indicating a stronger effect on high-emission industries, while having no significant impact on high-pollution industries; and (3) the induced behavior of businesses, such as increasing green innovation and environmental protection expenditure, potentially "crowding out" the effects of the carbon trading pilot., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

In order to explore the effective path to improve the efficiency of industrial water pollution governance efficiency (WGE), this study takes 27 prefecture-level cities in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration in China as the research object, measures WGE through the improved SBM model, and tests the impact of WGE drivers using the spatial Durbin model (SDM). The study found that environmental pollution governance investment (EPGI) is positively correlated with WGE, and industrial agglomeration status (IAS) has inhibitory effects on the improvement of WGE. By testing IAS 2 , it was determined that the impact of IAS on WGE has a "U"-shaped relationship. The direct impact of EPGI on WGE is 0.5016, and the indirect impact on WGE is 0.6428; the direct impact of IAS on WGE is -0.3036, and the indirect impact on WGE is -0.5158. Among the other tested impact drivers, per capita GDP (PCG), industrial structure (IS), and level of technological innovation (TIL) are positively correlated with the dependent variable WGE, while energy consumption intensity (ECI), environmental regulation intensity (ERI), and degree of openness to foreign investment (FIR) are negatively correlated with the dependent variable WGE. In addition to the impact of the aforementioned main drivers, IAS and EPGI, these six drivers also largely influence and determine the final impact on WGE., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The traditional view is that local governments are inclined to ease environmental regulations in response to fiscal pressure (FP) and alleviate FP by sacrificing the environment for economic development (ED). This paper takes Chinese Mainland resource-based cities (RBC) as the research sample but draws different conclusions. The research results are as follows: firstly, for RBC, although FP reduces environmental pollution (EP), it is not conducive to ED. Compared with non-resource-based cities (NRBC), the economic negative effect of FP in RBC is more obvious. Secondly, FP is detrimental to ED by reducing EP, and RBC have not sacrificed the environment to promote ED in the context of FP. This paper summarizes that the development path of RBC should be "optimizing government behavior → increasing FP → improving environmental quality → reducing ED level." Thirdly, the impact of FP on cities with slower economic growth and smaller economic gap is greater, and the impact of FP on cities with better environment is more obvious. This paper argues that facing FP, RBC in China will not trade EP for ED; at the same time, we suggest RBC in other countries in the face of the FP, not only thinking of promoting ED at the expense of the EP and ease the FP, but also the development of green ecological requirement, overall consideration of the relationship between EP and ED, and then achieve green and sustainable ED without degrading the environment as far as possible., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Financial technology provides strong support for the low-carbon transformation of energy through digital technology. There is limited research on the relationship between financial technology and low-carbon transformation of energy, and the information transmission and connection between the two entities are still unclear. Therefore, this paper innovatively conducts in-depth research on the spatial effect between financial technology and low-carbon transformation of energy and further analyzes the intermediary role of green finance in it. Firstly, the spatial Durbin model and spatial intermediary effect model between financial technology and low-carbon transformation of energy are constructed. Then, based on the Moran coefficient, the spatial effects of low-carbon transformation in financial technology and energy were analyzed. Finally, an empirical study was conducted using the panel data of China's provinces from 2011 to 2020. The results show that financial technology can effectively promote the energy transformation, and financial technology and the degree of low-carbon transformation of energy have significant spatial effects. From the perspective of intermediary effect, financial technology can effectively improve the green finance structure and promote low-carbon transformation of energy. From the perspective of spatial intermediary effect, while promoting the development of green finance in the local area, financial technology will also suppress the development of green finance in surrounding areas, thereby inhibiting the low-carbon transformation of energy in the surrounding areas. Therefore, China should strengthen the development of financial science and technology, guide the transformation of traditional finance, improve the coverage of green finance, and realize the low-carbon transformation of national energy., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Virtual agglomeration of manufacturing has become a new driving force for improving the green total factor productivity of enterprises, which is of great significance in achieving the sustainable development of manufacturing enterprises and the construction of manufacturing power. This paper clarifies the connotation, model, and characteristics of manufacturing virtual agglomeration. Based on the five dimensions of virtual agglomeration platform, digitization of subjects, data center, virtual cooperation network, and logistics service, this paper constructs an index system for the manufacturing virtual agglomeration. Entropy weight method was used to measure the level of manufacturing virtual agglomeration from 2012 to 2021. Furthermore, this paper analyzes and tests the influence mechanism of manufacturing virtual agglomeration on the green total factor productivity of enterprises. This paper finds that manufacturing virtual agglomeration improves the green total factor productivity of enterprises, which shows a nonlinear relationship. The mechanism test results show that manufacturing virtual agglomeration improves the green total factor productivity of enterprises by accelerating green technology innovation, forming a scale economy, and reducing transaction costs. The heterogeneity analysis shows that the promotion effect of virtual agglomeration in manufacturing on the green total factor productivity of enterprises is affected by the property rights and scale of the enterprise., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Climate change is an important issue for cities today and in the future. At present, China has a large population and complex climate conditions, and cities are also vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change (Tian, Environ Sustain Dev 6: 153-155 2020). Three-dimensional greening can not only improve the green space system of a city but also have a far-reaching impact on the ecology, image, and economic benefits of a city. Therefore, the study of urban three-dimensional greening is an effective means to deal with climate change strategies. By exploring the influence of traditional greening and three-dimensional greening on Local Climate in Beilin District of Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, the mechanism of three-dimensional greening on urban ecological environment was discussed, and the ecological theory, urban three-dimensional greening theory, and urban local climate zone (LCZ) were referred to. Based on the methods of national climate monitoring, ENVI-met simulation, and field independent measurement, this paper selected a research sample site in the east section of Jianshe Road, Beilin District, Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province, China, and applied ENVI-met software to simulate the thermal stress relationship among building exterior surfaces, plants, and air in the street; quantified the overall ecology of the area; and used measuring instruments. The influence of different types of greening in the base on the site temperature, humidity, CO 2 (carbon dioxide) concentration, wind speed, and other climate factors data was, respectively, measured and analyzed. The grid analysis was used to compare the traditional greening and three-dimensional greening, then the numerical differences of each impact factor were sorted out, and the effect of three-dimensional greening on the improvement of urban ecological environment was discussed by analyzing the climate factors with greater impact. The results show that (1) three-dimensional greening plus traditional greening is the most beneficial mode; (2) in the same environment, according to the parameter of 1.5 m from the ground in the model environment, it can be seen that the temperature of the space treated with three-dimensional greening of buildings is reduced by 3.5-3.6 ℃ compared with the control group, the relative humidity is different by 7-8%, the CO 2 concentration is reduced by about 5%, and the spatial wind speed is relatively small. (3) When the urban green coverage rate is more than 40%, the improvement of temperature is more obvious, if it reaches 50%, the cool phenomenon in summer can be fundamentally changed. From the perspective of human perception, the PMV index increased by 0.27 on average. This paper discusses and analyzes the three-dimensional greening of urban streets in Beilin District, Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province, China, and studies its influence on urban ecology to different degrees. The conclusions are as follows: Different types of greening have different degrees of influence on urban climate. Meanwhile, the experimental results of this paper show that in cities like Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, China, where summer is hot, adding three-dimensional greening to traditional street greening can significantly improve the environmental microclimate, which is an effective means to cope with climate change, improve the site environment, and stabilize the urban ecosystem., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

The opening of high-speed railway (HSR) has accelerated the reorganization and reallocation of regional production elements, and constantly promoted the adjustment and upgrading of industrial structure. The cleaner production effect produced by industrial structure upgrading is of great significance to industrial pollution reduction. As a bridge connecting resources within the city and elements outside the city, the location of HSR stations has become an important factor affecting the structural emission reduction effect. Based on the data of 285 prefecture level and above cities in China from 2004 to 2018, this paper investigates the structural emission reduction effects of HSR opening and the impact of HSR station location on it by employing difference-in-differences (DID) model combined with mediation effect method. The results demonstrate that the opening of HSR has significant structural emission reduction effect, and the upgrading of inter-industry structure and the intra-industry structure are important mechanisms for HSR to achieve industrial emission reduction. The structural emission reduction effect of HSR opening is closely related to the location of HSR stations. With the increase of the distance between HSR station and city center, the industrial structure upgrading effect will continue to weaken, thus inhibiting the exertion of structural emission reduction effect, of which 10 km away from the city center is the optimal site strategy for the HSR service to give full play to the structural emission reduction effect, and exceeding 50 km will be significantly detrimental to its role in promoting industrial structure upgrading., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The analysis of energy use not only sheds light on lightening the increasing pressures from energy systems but also improves the flexibility and reliability of power systems. As the highest carbon emission country in the world, detailed evaluation of China's carbon emission trading scheme (ETS) on the energy use is sensitive to energy sectors and highlights the importance of energy utilization in current society. Yet, because of the presence of a possible discontinuity caused by policy implementation, this study uses synthetic control method (SCM) to confirm whether there is a cutoff for energy use after the ETS implementation. Furthermore, threshold regression model is integrated to estimate the causal relationship when there is a discontinuity. SCM is used to verify which has caused the discontinuity for threshold regression model, and threshold regression model is used to quantify and estimate the causal relationship which SCM cannot evaluate. Through the data analysis, it is found that ETS makes effect on energy use deduction in most of pilot ETS regions while the effect is affected by economic development, population, industry, and research. Some suggestions on how to reduce energy use conclude this paper., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Landslide susceptibility zoning is necessary for landslide risk management. This study aims to conduct the landslide susceptibility evaluation based on a model coupled with information value (IV) and logistic regression (LR) for Badong County in Hubei Province, China. Through the screening of landslide predisposing factors based on correlation analysis, a spatial database including 11 landslide factors and 588 historical landslides was constructed in ArcGIS. The IV, LR and their coupled model were then developed. To validate the accuracy of the three models, the receiver operating characteristic curves (ROC) and the landslide density curves were correspondingly created. The results showed that the areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUCs) of the three models were 0.758, 0.786 and 0.818, respectively. Moreover, the landslide density increased exponentially with the landslide susceptibility, but the coupled model exhibited a higher growth rate among the three models, indicating good performance of the proposed model in landslide susceptibility evaluation. The landslide susceptibility map generated by the coupled model demonstrated that the high and very high landslide susceptibility area mainly concentrated along rivers and roads. Furthermore, by counting the landslide numbers and analyzing the landslide susceptibility within each town in Badong County, it was discovered that Yanduhe, Xinling, Dongrangkou and Guandukou were the main landslide-prone areas. This research will contribute to landslide prevention and mitigation and serve as a reference for other areas., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Environmental regulation with spatial spillover effect is an important way to accelerate the transformation and upgrading of modern water resources structure, and then achieve sustainable development of China's water resources. How does environmental regulation affect the GWRE to alleviate or solve China's water shortage? In this paper, the GWRE is measured based on panel data from 31 provinces in China from 2000-2020, and the impact of high pressure (low suction) and heterogeneity on GWRE by environmental regulations is explored. The results revealed that the high pressure of environmental regulation significantly promoted the improvement of GWRE, but the improvement effect of low suction power was not significant. Similar conclusions are drawn under the tests of population size-economic distance and population size-technology distance. The high pressure of market-type and autonomous-type environmental regulation has a significant effect on GWRE, while the improvement effect of command-type environmental regulation is weak. The high pressure of environmental regulation in the eastern, central, western, and northeastern regions has a decreasing effect on GWRE. It is recommended to break the principle of GDP performance appraisal, establish and improve the "green performance" evaluation system, adopt regional differentiated environmental regulation policies, and establish a modern green water resources industrial structure system., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Guilin is a typical representative of karst landform in South China. Because of its unique geographical landform and hydrological environment, Lijiang River Basin has received a certain degree of attention in field of ecology and sustainable development. Explore and visualize the hotspots and frontiers of Guilin Lijiang River Basin Ecology and Sustainable Development (GLRBESD) by using bibliometrics, CiteSpace, and VOSviewer. Results showed that number of published papers was in a fluctuating upward trend from 1992 to 2022 and from 2011 to 2022, respectively. Work of scholars in this field has been continuously strengthened and deepened, and overall scientific research results show an increasing trend. Research objects and topics are mainly aimed at the water resources, climate, and environment of GLRB Landscape ecology and SDG index construction. Research of GLRBESD-published documents has the characteristics of multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary integration. High-frequency keywords in research field focus on ecotourism, ecological restoration, and sustainable development, mainly based on the research of ecotourism development. Impact of environmental factor changes and human activities on land use change in different periods is an important research topic. Core research field of GLRBESD on macro-scale can be divided into ESV and function, ecological compensation and ecotourism, ecological environment and ecological restoration, ecological network and ecological risk assessment, and sustainable development. This research provides systematic scientific research basis for enhancing sustainable development ability and ecosystem functions and services of World Natural Heritage Site., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Currently, waste management classification is a critical topic that concerns not only environmental protection, but also the advancement of a circular economy. To address this issue within the context of a circular economy, this study develops an uncooperative triumvirate paradigm consisting of "central regulation, local promotion, and universal participation." The model analyzes the strategy choices of both the central and local governments while using an evolutionary game method to encourage residents to promote waste separation. Using numerical simulations, this study examines the variables that impact the strategy choices of the three parties over time. The results show that (1) the desire of the central government, local governments, and citizens to engage has varying effects on each of these entities; the conduct of local government is significantly influenced by the preparedness of the central government, but residents' behavior is comparatively less influenced by the central government's intention; in comparison, it is mainly affected by psychological expectations of income and expenditure; (2) the impact of the local government and residents on each other is characterized by an unbalanced relationship, with the local government being more sensitive to residents' willingness to participate and changes in policy support being more sensitive; and (3) residents show more sensitivity to incentive funds, compensation, penalties, and benefit distribution coefficients. To promote waste separation in China, it is crucial to establish a reasonable expectation of ecological civilization, establish an efficient mechanism for environmental protection supervision, refine local waste separation programs, increase local governments' responsibility for promoting them, ensure legal methods for universal participation, and improve the regulatory mechanism for universal participation to protect the environment. In addition, it is essential to improve the education system for waste separation and continue research related to waste separation., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The open-pit mining area is highly affected by human activities, which aggravate soil erosion and disturb surface ecology, bringing many problems and challenges to its environmental management and restoration, which has received widespread attention. The establishment of an objective, timely and quantitative remote sensing monitoring, and evaluation system for the spatio-temporal evolution of the surface ecological environment in the open-pit mining area is of great significance for its environmental protection, management decisions, and sustainable social development. Based on the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform, this paper uses Landsat images to construct and calculate the remote sensing ecological index (RSEI) of the Pingshuo open-cast mine area (POMA) from 1990 to 2020 and monitor and evaluate its surface ecological environment. Combined with the Theil-Sen median, Mann-Kendall test, and Hurst index, the spatio-temporal process was analyzed. The results showed that the ecological environmental quality of the mining area first decreased and then increased from 1990 to 2020. 1990-2000 was a period of serious ecological degradation, followed by improvement. The overall improvement area reached 87.03%, and the degradation was concentrated in the coal mining area. Between 1990 and 2020, the Hurst index of the mining area was 0.452, indicating that the region has a fragile ecological environment and has difficult maintaining its stability. The global Moran's I mean value of the RSEI of the study area is 0.92, which combined with Moran's scatter plot to indicate that there is a strong positive spatial correlation rather than a random distribution of its ecological environment. During the study period, the impact on the climate of the ecological environmental change of POMA was weak, and human factors such as coal mining, land reclamation, and social construction were the main driving forces for the change in ecological quality. The results of this study reveal the changing trend of surface ecology in the mining area over the past 30 years, which is helpful for understanding its impact mechanism on ecological quality and provides support for the management of the region., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Building a carbon ecological security (CES) framework helps to scientifically evaluate and manage the regional carbon cycle and eco-environment and support regional ecological security patterns. This paper adopted the pressure-state-response-immune (PSRI) model and the carbon balance index method to evaluate the ecological quality and carbon balance pressure. Then, based on the decoupling model and the improved four-quadrant model, the CES framework was constructed to evaluate the changing trend of the CES of Xuzhou City from 2005 to 2020. The results showed that the carbon balance pressure of Xuzhou City showed a pattern of "low-high-low" from east to west, and most areas tended to have a carbon balance and surplus in 2020. The ecological quality showed an overall upward trend during the study period. Protection and restoration drove the response and immune index growth from 2010 to 2020. In the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan stage, the nine districts of Xuzhou City were in a stable decoupling state, and the overall decoupling process was ideal. The CES of districts showed individual differences in the general upward trend. The carbon balance pressure of Gulou and Quanshan Districts was the main factor restricting the districts' CES. Therefore, based on the empirical results, this research proposes relevant suggestions to enhance carbon ecological security to achieve regional green and low-carbon development., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Vegetation is an essential component of terrestrial ecosystems, influenced by climate change and human activities. Quantifying the relative contributions of climate change and human activities to vegetation dynamics is crucial for addressing global climate change. Sichuan Province is one of the essential ecological functional areas in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, and its vegetation change is of great significance to the environmental function and ecological security of the Yangtze River Basin and southwest China. In this paper, the modified Carnegie-Ames-Stanford Approach(CASA) model was used to estimate the monthly NPP (Net Primary Productivity) of vegetation in Sichuan Province from 2000 to 2018, and the univariate linear regression analysis was used to analyze the temporal and spatial variation of vegetation NPP in Sichuan Province from 2000 to 2018. In addition, taking vegetation NPP as an index, Pearson correlation analysis, partial correlation analysis, and second-order partial correlation analysis were carried out to quantitatively analyze the contribution of climate change and human activities to vegetation NPP. Finally, the Hurst index and nonparametric Man-Kendall significance test were used to predict the future change trend of vegetation NPP in Sichuan Province. The results show that (1) from 2000 to 2018, the NPP of vegetation in Sichuan Province has a significant increasing trend (Slope = 6.09gC·m -2 ·a -1 ), with a multi-year average of 438.72 gC·m -2 ·a -1 , showing a trend of low in the east and high in the middle. The response of vegetation NPP to altitude is different at different elevations; (2) the contribution rates of climate change and human activities to vegetation NPP change are 4.12gC·m -2 ·a -1 and 1.97gC·m -2 ·a -1 , respectively. In contrast, the impact of human activities on NPP is more significant than climate change. Human activities are the main factors affecting vegetation restoration and degradation in Sichuan Province. However, the positive contribution to NPP change is less than climate change; (3) the future vegetation NPP change trend in Sichuan Province is mainly rising, and the same direction change trend is much larger than the reverse change trend. The areas with an increasing trend in the future account for 89.187% of the total area. This research helps understand the impact of climate change and human activities on vegetation change in Sichuan Province. It offers scientific bases for vegetation restoration and ecosystem management in Sichuan and the surrounding areas., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Based on the panel data of 30 provinces (municipalities and autonomous regions) in China from 2005 to 2019, this paper uses Gini coefficient decomposition and kernel density estimation to investigate the regional differences and dynamic evolution trend of rural energy carbon emission intensity in China. Then, the convergence model is used to analyze the convergence characteristics and influencing factors of carbon emission intensity. The study found the following: (1) During the observation period, the carbon emissions of coal energy and oil energy were much higher than those of gas energy. The carbon emissions of rural energy consumption experienced three stages of development, and the carbon emission intensity showed a downward trend as a whole. The spatial distribution pattern of total carbon emissions present an "adder" distribution, and the spatial agglomeration phenomenon gradually strengthens with the passage of time. (2) The Gini coefficient of China's rural energy consumption carbon emission intensity shows a trend of "Inverted N-shaped." The Gini coefficient of carbon emission intensity in the eastern and northeastern regions shows an increasing trend, while the Gini coefficient of carbon emission intensity in the western and central regions shows a downward trend. The super variable density is the main source of carbon emission intensity difference. The peak value of the main peak of the nuclear density curve of the carbon emission intensity increased significantly, the bimodal form evolved into a single peak form, and the density center moved to the left. (3) The carbon emission intensity of rural energy consumption in the whole, central, and western regions of China has the characteristic of σ convergence, while the carbon emission intensity in the eastern and northeastern regions does not have the characteristic of σ convergence. There is a significant spatial positive correlation in the carbon emission intensity, there is also a significant β convergence characteristic, the speed of conditional β convergence is significantly higher than that of absolute β convergence, and the spatial interaction will further improve the convergence speed. Industrial structure, industrial agglomeration, and energy efficiency will increase the convergence speed. In terms of sub-regions, the conditional convergence rate of carbon emission intensity in the four regions shows a decreasing trend in the northeast, central, eastern, and western regions., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Under the impact of "double-carbon" target, transition finance has an important impact on green innovation of Chinese double-high enterprises. Using a sample of 4270 high-polluting and high-energy-consumption listed enterprises (referred to as double-high enterprises) in China from 2012 to 2021, this paper empirically examines the impact of transition finance on the green innovation of China's double-high enterprises by using a fixed-effects model. The study finds that transition finance can have a facilitating effect on green innovation in double-high enterprises. The intermediary mechanism test shows that transition finance can promote green innovation of double-high enterprises through alleviating financing constraints, increasing the level of green management, and enhancing the policy orientation effect. The heterogeneity test finds that transition finance promotes green innovation more significantly for the double-high enterprises that are state-owned, large-scale, and located in regions with high levels of intellectual property protection. Further research finds that the role of transition finance in promoting green innovation in double-high enterprises helps to promote the achievement of green development of double-high enterprises., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)