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Once printed, books are always accompanied by the smells of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) which are continuously emitted not only by inks but also by papers themselves throughout their lives. Although the VOCs from papers may bring mild discomfort to readers, they are considered as very important factors that feature the degradation of papers and show potential applications in cultural relic appraisal. In this study, an analytical approach based on solid phase microextraction combined with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (SPME-GC/MS) was proposed for the evaluation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted by Chinese traditional handmade papers. The VOCs evaluations and artificial aging processes were both applied to recent-made papers and naturally aged papers from a traditional Chinese calligraphy and painting scroll (collected by the National Museum of China). To be noticed, a large number of aliphatic acids, aldehydes, ketones, furan derivatives, benzene series and terpenoid substances indicated that the VOCs signals not only reveal the degradation of paper but also tentatively reflect the storage environment along hundreds of years ago. The semi-quantitative evaluation of markers indicated that the historical paper is under a serious degradation due to the high capacity it releases. Our results provided a path way to get the degradation information of ancient paintings as well as potential realistic applications such as the conservation of paper-based relics and the environmental protection in libraries and museums. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecosystem ecology, like all scientific disciplines, is often propelled forward by "classic" papers that identify key concepts within the field and define the core questions for generations of scientists. Here, we examine the legacy and sustained impact of a paper long considered a classic in ecology, E.P. (Gene) Odum's 1969 "The strategy of ecosystem development." Odum's paper presented testable predictions about species diversity, energy flow, and biogeochemical dynamics during ecosystem succession and provided guiding principles for environmental conservation and management. Odum's 24 predictions on "ecosystem development" were a key component of this paper's legacy: The framework was referenced in 62.0% and tested in 28.7% of 1598 citing papers we examined. Although we found that support for Odum's framework grew over time, support for any particular prediction was inconsistent, highlighting the unresolved nature of some of the framework's principles. Odum's conceptual framework for ecosystem studies—as well as his forward-thinking attempts to connect ecosystem ecology with humans and society—continues to be pertinent to current and future research frontiers. Simplicity of the framework was its strength, and major limitation, painting ecosystem functioning in broad strokes, with no acknowledgement about interactions among the predictions. Newer generations have their work cut out for them by bridging evolutionary biology and ecosystem science or metabolic theory and ecological stoichiometry. Similarly, newer generations are using Odum's multidisciplinary approach to address the most pressing global change issues and designing solutions that make the Earth life sustaining system compatible with growing human demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plastic bags create a serious environmental problem. The proposed jute fibre reinforced laminated paper composite and reinforcement-fibre free paper laminate may help to combat the war against this pollutant to certain extent. The paper laminate, without reinforcement fibre, exhibited a few fold superiority in tensile properties than single paper strip. The studies further show that an appreciable improvement in tensile properties can be achieved by introducing continuous jute fibre in paper laminates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A five-stage sequential extraction procedure was used to fractionate heavy metals (Cd, Cu, Pb, Cr, Zn, Fe, Mn, Ni, Co, As, V and Ba) in a biosludge from the biological wastewater treatment plant of Stora Enso Oyj Veitsiluoto Mills at Kemi, Northern Finland, into the following fractions: (1) water-soluble fraction, (2) exchangeable fraction, (3) easily reduced fraction, (4) oxidizable fraction, and (5) residual fraction. The biosludge investigated in this study is a combination of sludge from the primary and secondary clarifiers at the biological wastewater treatment plant. Extraction stages (2)–(4) follow the protocol proposed by the Measurements and Testing Program (formerly BCR Programme) of the European Commission, which is based on acetic acid extraction (stage 2), hydroxylamine hydrochloride extraction (stage 3), and hydrogen peroxide digestion following the ammonium acetate extraction (stage 4). The residual fraction (stage 5) was based on digestion of the residue from stage 4 in a mixture of HF + HNO3 + HCl. Although metals were extractable in all fractions, the highest concentrations of most of the metals occurred in the residual fraction. From the environmental point of view, it was notable that the total heavy metal concentrations in the biosludge did not exceed the maximal allowable heavy metal concentrations for sewage sludge used in agriculture, set on the basis of environmental protection of soil by European Union Directive 86/278/EEC, and by the Finnish legislation. The Ca (98.6 g kg−1; dry weight) and Mg (2.2 g kg−1; dry weight) concentrations in the biosludge were 62 and 11 times higher than the typical values of 1.6 and of 0.2 g kg−1 (dry weight), respectively, in arable land in Central Finland. The biosludge had a slightly alkaline pH (∼8.30), a high loss-on-ignition value (∼78%) and a liming effect of 10.3% expressed as Ca equivalents (dry weight). This indicates its potential as a soil conditioner and improvement agent, as well as a pH buffer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy shortage and excessive carbon emissions have become the main constraints to the sustainable development of China's logistics industry. Improving the efficiency of the logistics industry is crucial to promoting regional ecological environment protection and sustainable development of the logistics industry. In this paper, the efficiency of China's logistics industry in 2013–2019 is evaluated by using the non-oriented EBM model considering the unexpected output, and then the influencing factors of the efficiency of the logistics industry in the central region are analyzed by using the panel Tobit model. The results show that the logistics industry in the central region is at a low efficiency level. Factors, such as the level of economic development, industrial structure and technical level have a significant positive impact on the efficiency of the logistics industry in the central region, while factors such as government support and logistics infrastructure have a significant negative impact on the efficiency of the logistics industry in the central region. Finally, the paper puts forward some targeted recommendations for the sustainable development of the logistics industry in the central region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China, there exists a huge debate for a long time on whether a double dividend, reducing pollution emissions and boosting employment, can be achieved by intensifying environmental regulations. In this paper, we use two data sets on provincial environmental legislation and Chinese manufacturing firms during 1998–2013, to estimate the impact of provincial environmental legislation on the firms' employment growth with a difference-in-difference (DID) model. Results showed that (1) after the implementation of environmental legislation, the employment growth of regulated manufacturing firms decreases significantly by 3.07%, and this result is robust to alternative tests. (2) Local environmental legislation reduces employment growth mainly via the influencing mechanism of the firm's entry and exit, export, and innovation. (3) The local environmental legislation has heterogeneous impacts on employment growth in different industries and different regions, and the estimated effect is more obvious in high-pollution industries and areas with strong enforcement. (4) Environmental legislation significantly improves job destruction and reduces job creation, resulting in a − 3.86% job net increase. Due to the long-term implementation of extensive economic growth mode, China's ecological environment has been deteriorating since the 1990s, and environmental pollution has attracted more and more social attention. Until 2013, the Communist Party of China put forward 'ecological civilization', and building a beautiful new China with harmonious coexistence between man and nature has become an important development strategy. Meanwhile, starting from the implementation of the Two-Control-Zone policy in 1998, China has implemented numerous environmental policies in just ten years. These environmental policies have greatly improved the quality of China's ecological environment, but their economic effects have been controversial. Given the special historical period, this paper helps assess the impact of Chinese environmental policies on employment and provides a more objective policy evaluation and implications for improving existing laws and regulations to achieve higher social welfare. To achieve this goal of balancing the improvement of the ecological environment and high employment level, environmental policies firstly should be flexible to ensure that the environmental standards follow the firm's characteristics and regional characteristics to avoid "one size fits all". Particularly, for regions with poor economic development or having a single industrial structure, the implementation cycle of the environmental policies should be extended to ensure that they have enough time to achieve industrial restructuring and complete the environmental protection goals. Secondly, we find that environmental legislation hurts employment growth by limiting export decisions, so the government should use multiple channels to stabilize export when implementing environmental legislation. Thirdly, technological R&D and innovation play an important role in the effect of environmental legislation on firms' employment growth. Therefore, the government should provide a more flexible environment for firms' R&D and innovation with appropriate fiscal policies and technical support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two PCP-degrading bacterial strains, Bacillus cereus (ITRC-S6) and Serratia marcescens (ITRC-S7) were used for the treatment of pulp and paper mill effluent at conditions; 1.0% glucose and 0.5% peptone at 30 ± 1°C at 120 rpm for 168 h of incubation. These two bacterial strains effectively reduced colour (45–52%), lignin (30–42%), BOD (40–70%), COD (50–60%), total phenol (32–40%) and PCP (85–90%) within 168 h of incubation. However, the highest reduction in colour (62%), lignin (54%), BOD (70%), COD (90%), total phenol (90%) and PCP (100%) was recorded by mixed culture treatment. The bacterial mechanism for the degradation of pulp and paper mill effluent may be explained by an increase in the cells biomass using added co-substrates resulting liberation of significant amount of chloride due to bacterial dechlorination of chlorolignins and chlorophenols this showed reduction in colour, lignin and toxicity in the effluent. Further, GC-MS analysis of ethyl acetate-extractable compounds from treated pulp paper mill effluent reinforces the bacterium capability for the degradation of lignin and pentachlorophenol, as many aromatic compounds such as 2-chlorophenol, 2, 4, 6-trichlorophenol and tetrachlorohydroquinone, 6-chlorohydroxyquinol and tetrachlorohydroquinone detected which were not present in the untreated effluent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low-value recyclable waste (LVRW) is an essential component of municipal domestic waste. Due to the lightweight and high quantity characteristics, the main disposal methods of LVRW are incineration and landfill, which are not conducive to the environmental protection requirements and the goal of carbon neutrality and emission peak. The paper focuses on the delicate separation of LVRW to realize a cost-effective solution for waste sorting. Firstly, a machine vision (MV) pneumatic sorting equipment was designed based on the MV detection system. Then, a large number of authentic waste images were captured and labeled to train a high accuracy LVRW prediction model through semi-automatic labeling and transfer learning. Subsequently, the LVRW waste sorting solution was designed and constructed, and a comparative experimental study about the MV sorting method and the whole solution was conducted. The experimental results show that the MV sorting method achieves 92% sorting accuracy, and the solution can dispose of 65 tons of LVRW per day with a waste recycling rate of 37.7%. The sorting equipment and solutions developed in the paper can effectively improve the resource utilization of LVRW at a lower cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information asymmetry is a prominent problem in the advancement of green finance, and because of the difficulty of capturing "information", research on the role of information factors in green finance has been limited. In this study, a quasi-natural experiment based on China's environmental information disclosure system in 2008 is conducted to investigate the effect of information factors on green finance. Using the panel datasets of China's 107 cities and 173 environmental protection firms from 2005 to 2015, this study, respectively, adopts the difference-in-difference (DID) method and triple difference (DDD) method to examine the effect of environmental information disclosure on regional green finance development and the utilization efficiency of green funds. According to the results, public disclosure of environmental information can promote both regional green finance development and the efficient utilization of green funds by energy-based environmental protection enterprises. Heterogeneity analysis at the regional level suggests that environmental information disclosure has a greater impact on green finance in regions with lower resource endowments and stronger environmental regulations. Heterogeneity analysis at enterprise level shows that compared to state-owned energy-based environmental firms, the efficiency of green capital utilization of non-state-owned energy-based environmental firms is more sensitive to the disclosure of environmental information. The findings of this paper provide a theoretical and empirical foundation for developing green finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy-saving and environmental protection enterprises (ESEPEs) are one of the most important national green enterprises, and their sustainability has become critical to achieving the goals of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality. Analyzing an enterprise's sustainability over time allows leaders to better adjust the operating plan for the next stage. From both optimistic and pessimistic double frontier perspectives, this paper proposes a double frontier incremental data envelopment analysis (DEA) model based on the traditional DEA-CCR model. The proposed model allows a direct assessment of whether the stage efficiency of the ESEPE is efficient or inefficient. To better understand the ranking of each enterprise in the industry, this paper uses a stage cross-efficiency model based on Shapley value from the perspective of a cooperative game, which ranks the enterprises from a neutral standpoint. The proposed double-frontier incremental DEA model is applied in a stage sustainability assessment for 15 ESEPEs. The results show that the proposed DEA model is more direct than the traditional DEA-CCR model in reflecting the enterprise's stage efficiency. In the three stages, 2012–2015, 2015–2018, and 2018–2021, the majority of the selected 15 ESEPEs have efficient stage efficiency, whereas several enterprises are stage inefficient. The reasons for stage inefficiency stem more from within the enterprise, where the enterprise's working capital is unstable, goodwill is impaired, and so on, resulting in stagnation of various revenues and funding and investment rounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evaluation of urban environmental sustainability is an important prerequisite for scientific decision-making of urban sustainability. This paper proposed an evaluation method of urban environmental sustainability based on the integration of multi-improvement demands. Considering the interaction between the economic and social systems on the environmental system, this paper constructed an urban environmental sustainability evaluation indicator system from three dimensions: environmental foundation, environmental pollution, and environmental protection. Combined with the actual improvement demands of each city, a corresponding weighting method was constructed, and the weights of each city's individualized improvement demands were obtained through the analysis of indicator data. Further, in order to consider the fairness and guidance of the evaluation, the corresponding random simulation algorithm was matched for the individualized weights, and the evaluation value and the superiority probability in a stable state after multiple simulations were sought. Based on this, this paper conducted an empirical evaluation of urban environmental sustainability of the 14 cities in Liaoning Province, China. Through the demand-driven evaluation model, cities can obtain improvement suggestions that meet their demands while understanding their environmental sustainability level. It is convenient for top-down policy guidance and bottom-up practical exploration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Air pollution poses a great danger to human health and economic development, and understanding people's willingness to pay for improved air quality (WTPA) impacts environmental protection. This paper investigates WTPA based on the perspective of subjective well-being (SWB) and analyzes the mediating role of social interaction on the relationship between the two. This paper distinguishes social interactions into online and offline interactions and analyzes whether the mediating effect of the two different interactions on SWB and WTPA exists separately. Using data from the 2018 China General Social Survey (CGSS), we find that SWB has a significant positive effect on WTPA, individuals with higher well-being have higher pro-environmental willingness; there is no age, education level, sex of the person, or regional heterogeneity in the effect of SWB on WTPA; offline social interactions play a partially mediating role between SWB and WTPA, while online social interactions failed to mediate between the two. This paper's policy implication is that improving residents' subjective well-being is both an important development goal and an essential way to resolve the conflict between economic development and environmental protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue examines environmental governance, conceptualized as environmental protections, support for sustainable development, and the regulation of large-scale development projects. Through analysis of dynamics during the commodities super-cycle of the 2000s–2010s, contributors explore the multifaceted ways that societal actors interact with the state to support, oppose, or modify environmental governance, with a focus on communities impacted by export activities and economic elites who favor their expansion. Several papers seek to understand the governance of sectors—mining, oil, and soy. Others begin with natural areas threatened by development—urban wetlands and forests. As a collection, the papers reveal three commonalities that affect the extent to which environmental governance institutions address demands of impacted communities: (1) the question of whether a policymaking process takes place in reaction to mobilizing, or whether it proactively engages environmental questions as they pertain to local populations; (2) strategies by civil society, and above all impacted residents, to ensure the implementation of environmental policies; and (3) debates over knowledge, including community efforts to harness expertise and information to counter paradigms advanced by business actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Addressing the excessive input and inefficient use of agrochemicals are crucial for global food security, environmental protection, and human health. This paper offers a new idea from the perspective of outsourcing agricultural production. The impact of outsourcing on the frequency and intensity of agrochemical inputs were theoretically analyzed and empirically tested using a field survey of 1211 farmers in Heilongjiang, Henan, and Hunan, the major food-producing areas in China. A Logit regression framework was used to analyze the effect, a conditional mixture process (CMP) method was used to address potential endogeneity concerns, and a mediation effect model was used to dissect the mechanism. The results show that the effect of outsourcing on both input frequency and input intensity of agrochemicals was positive at the 1% significance level. The positive effect conclusion still holds even after addressing the potential endogeneity concerns, and in the sub-sample estimates for maize, wheat, and rice. We conclude that outsourcing can improve the utilization efficiency of agrochemicals by increasing the frequency of agrochemical inputs, but fail to solve the excessive agrochemical inputs and even leads to a further increase in the intensity of agrochemical inputs. Moreover, the mechanism for an increase in agrochemical input intensity due to outsourcing was explored, and it is more likely to be caused by inhibiting farmers' investment in soil improvement measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the path from ecological discourse (ED) to ecological behaviour (EB) in environmental protection from the perspective of the ecolinguistic continuum. ED (i.e. beneficial and destructive discourse) is taken as a new indicator for improving individual EB in environmental protection. Based on the questionnaire survey data of 992 participants from 27 (79.4%) provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities in China, a tentative structural equation model (SEM) is established consisting of ED, ecological values (EV), ecological intention (EI), and EB. Through the path analysis (mediating and moderating effect test) by AMOS 23.0 software, the results show that ED cannot directly affect EB, which may be mediated by EV or EI, or both of the two, but the probability of an individual's ecological practice will be increased by the influence of beneficial ED as input. Furthermore, under the moderating of ED, the probability of transforming EI into EB is greater than that of EV, suggesting that ED has a bigger voice in EI→EB, and a positive and significant moderating effect of beneficial discourse is tested. Thus, ED as an indicator provides a new perspective on environmental protection and sustainable development. Potential applications for this indicator are also included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To investigate the influence of a geogrid-reinforced tailings dam on the seepage stability of the dam body, this paper was based on the field test of a reinforced tailings accumulation dam. The study utilized the finite element strength reduction method to simulate the stability of the main dam of the Fengshuigou tailings reservoir under different seepage conditions using ABAQUS software. Additionally, the paper discussed the impact of conventional heightening, dry beach length, and geogrid reinforcement on the position and safety factor of the saturation line of the dam body. The results showed that when the dam body was raised, the saturation line rose by 2.8–5.3 m, resulting in a decrease in the safety factor. The geogrid effectively reduced the height of the saturation line in the tailings dam. In comparison to the unreinforced condition (dam heightening), the saturation line of the tailings dam decreased by 0.9–2.8 m under the local reinforcement condition and by 3.2–12.5 m under the overall reinforcement condition. The geogrid significantly improved the stability of the tailings dam. Furthermore, under the local reinforcement condition, the safety factor of the dam increased by 3.8–5.5%, and under the overall reinforcement condition, it increased by 35.9–42.9%, when compared to the unreinforced condition. Increasing the dry beach length improved the stability of the tailings dam, and under normal working conditions, the safety of the tailings dam was much higher than under the minimum dry beach condition. These results served as a reference for the design of the dam and the new tailings reservoir, laying a foundation for the sustainable development and environmental protection of the tailings pond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conflict between agricultural production and environmental protection, especially vegetable production, is one of the world's most prominent concerns. The acceptance degree and possible response of new agricultural operation subjects, represented by Farmers Professional Cooperatives (FPCs), to green production policies are a core issue that must be considered when designing environmental policies in the future. Based on field survey data of 192 FPCs of vegetables in Shanghai, China, this paper uses a choice experiment method to test the willingness of cooperatives to adopt green production behaviors under different policy settings and to identify the differences under different operation scales. The results show that both mandatory policies and incentive policies have an impact on the willingness of cooperatives to adopt green production behaviors, but significant differences exist among FPCs of different operation scales. Specifically, the willingness of large-scale FPCs to adopt green production behavior is affected by key technology training and income subsidies, whereas the willingness of small-scale FPCs is only affected by income subsidies; the willingness of medium-scale FPCs is simultaneously affected by key technology training, income subsidies, and penalties. Therefore, when formulating relevant policies in the future, policy-makers should consider local conditions, including the endowment heterogeneity of the production and operation subjects, so as to enhance the level of green production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Daling River Basin is an important ecological functional area in the western region of Liaoning with outstanding environmental problems. The monitoring of ecological and environmental quality in the basin and the analysis of driving factors are of great importance for the protection of the ecological environment and the improvement of economic quality. In this paper, the three periods of Landsat remote sensing images in 1995, 2010 and 2020 are used as the basic data, and platforms and technical means such as RS and GIS are used to decipher and extract the three periods of land use information, and to construct the land use type transfer matrix. The remote sensing ecological index (RSEI) was improved, and the principal component analysis method was applied to construct the improved remote sensing ecological index (IRSEI) model based on the greenness (NDVI), moisture (WET), heat (LST) and new dryness (N-NDBSI), so as to realize the dynamic monitoring of ecological and environmental quality in the study area. Based on the land use change, combined with the trend of improved remote sensing ecological index (IRSEI) of Daling River Basin, thus achieving the purpose of rapid and efficient dynamic monitoring of ecological quality of Daling River Basin from 1995 to 2020. A geoprobe model was then used to systematically assess the drivers of ecological quality in the catchment. The results show that the improved remote sensing ecological index (IRSEI) can efficiently and accurately obtain the spatial distribution pattern and temporal variation trend of IRSEI in the study area, which is more in line with the characteristics of indicators in this study area. The IRSEI in the study area showed an increasing trend from 1995 to 2020, from 0.4794 to 0.5615, and the proportion of benign ecological classes increased year by year during the period. Among the evaluation indicators, NDVI and N-NDBSI are the main factors affecting the environmental and ecological quality of the Daling River Basin, and the increase of vegetation cover, climate regulation and human activities have obvious promoting effects on the improvement of the ecological environment of the Daling River Basin. This study provides a scientific theoretical basis for the implementation of further ecological environmental protection measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wireless sensors are used for smart building monitoring, biomedical applications, intelligent home appliances, urgent disaster management and precision agriculture production. These devices today operate with batteries that are very difficult to change. The major problem hindering the widespread deployment of wireless sensor networks is the need to constantly replace them because their batteries expires. We can see that it is possible to charge them using energy harvested from solar, vibration, thermal or ambient radio frequency sources. we can implement sustainable health surveillance systems, agriculture, mining, environmental protection and national infrastructure, which will improve the quality of life, save money and achieve ecological goals. We realized that it would be wise to specify a field of application for internet of things in order to be able to clarify the identification of the problem of energy consumption and its relation with renewable energies. In addition, one of the most interesting applications for the socio-economic fields in the world in recent years is Smart Farming. In this paper, we reviewed a state of the art on the use of renewable energy harvesting in precision agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the information era, effective environmental protection cannot be achieved without public concern. In this paper, public environmental concern (PEC) is subdivided into public concern about environmental pollution (PCEP), environmental regulations (PCER), and green behavior (PCGB). Based on the data set of the listed companies in China from 2011 to 2019 and the Baidu Index, we examine the influence of the three types of PECs on enterprises' environmental protection investment (EPI) in their different stages of the enterprise life cycle. It was found that three types of PECs have a significant impact on EPI, with PCER having the greatest effect. The impact of PEC varies at stages of the enterprise life cycle, and only in the growth stage, the three kinds of PECs play a significant role in promoting enterprises' EPI, while not in the maturity and the decline stages. Heterogeneity analysis shows that this positive effect is only significant for enterprises without ISO14001 certification and those in western China; PCER can significantly promote capitalized environmental investment, while PCEP can significantly promote expensed environmental investment. The findings can help to clarify the key role of the public in supervising the enterprises' environmental protection behavior and provide a decision-making basis for enterprises to dynamically adjust their environmental investment strategies in the whole life cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the continuous development of the economy and society, along with the sustained population growth, the issue of water resources carrying capacity in China has attracted increasing attention. This paper constructs a model for evaluating the provincial water resources carrying capacity in China from four dimensions: water, economy, society, and ecology. Utilizing this model, we analyze the spatiotemporal variations in water resources carrying capacity among 31 provinces in China from 2005 to 2021. Additionally, we delve into the coupling coordination and influencing factors of water resources carrying capacity. The study reveals an overall increasing trend in China's water resources carrying capacity index, with the ecological indicator exhibiting the most significant growth while the water resources sub-indicator lags behind. There are notable regional differences, with higher water resources carrying capacity observed in the eastern coastal areas and relatively lower capacity in the western regions. The ecological criterion becomes a core factor constraining water resources carrying capacity from 2005 to 2015, gradually giving way to the prominence of the social criterion since 2015. The coordination degree is relatively higher in the eastern regions, more scattered in the western regions, and relatively stable in the central regions. Based on the research findings, a series of recommendations are proposed, including strengthening environmental protection policies, optimizing water resources management mechanisms, improving water use efficiency, and promoting economic structural diversification. These suggestions aim to facilitate the sustainable development of water resources carrying capacity in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green investment is crucial to achieving the green transformation goal. Under increasingly strict environmental protection laws and regulations, whether it can induce the "Porter Hypothesis" effect and stimulate the green investment of enterprises is still controversial. This paper takes the China's new environmental protection law (NEPL) as a quasi-natural experiment, uses the green investment data of listed companies in China's heavy pollution industry, and applies the method of propensity score matching and difference-in-difference (PSM-DID) to verify whether the implementation of the law conforms to the "strong Porter Hypothesis." The results show that as a strict command-and-control environmental regulation tool, the implementation of NEPL has significantly promoted corporate's green investments in heavily polluting industries. The implementation of the NEPL guides to more standardized environmental disclosure regulation, stricter environmental enforcement, and severer financial constraints, and thus propel corporate's green investment. In addition, heterogeneity analysis indicates that the effect of NEPL is more significant in those samples of enterprises located in the regions with higher industrial concentration degree or with higher level of government environmental governance, enterprises of small and medium type, and enterprises with better financial performance and higher degree of equity incentive. To achieve the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals, this paper provides evidence to test whether "Porter Hypothesis" is established in transition economies from the view of environmental investment and provides reference for how developing country can further enrich their environmental regulation system and optimize enterprise's environmental protection strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research intends to look into the connection between Thailand's tourist industry and environmental quality. This study specifically examines how tourism industry and trade sector affect the environmental quality in Thailand. The objectives of the study are to assess how trade and tourism affect the environment and to provide suggestions for environment friendly travel habits. The autoregressive distributed lag model was used in the research to analyze in both the long- and short-term links between environmental quality, tourism, and trade in Thailand. The study's statistics, which span the years from 1995 to 2021, were taken from the World Bank database. According to the study's results, Thailand's trade and tourism are significantly inversely correlated with environmental quality. Based on this research, both the short- and long-term effects of increased trade and tourism are a reduction in the country's environmental quality. By presenting factual proof of the damaging effects of commerce and tourism on Thailand's ecosystem, the research adds to the body of previous material. The report also emphasizes the need for decision-makers to implement environmental protection laws and sustainable tourism practices in order to lessen the damaging effects of trade and tourism on the environment. The study's conclusions suggest that the Thai government gives concentration in implementing environment friendly tourist practices a higher priority. To further guarantee that the detrimental effects of trade and tourism on the environment are kept to a minimum, the government should think about enacting environmental protection measures. The paper concludes by recommending more research be conducted to examine how other elements, such as technology, may affect Thailand's environmental quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the increased frequency of extreme weather events and the implementation of the China's dual-carbon target, thermal power companies have been under pressure to construct green infrastructure and to actively pursue low-carbon transformation in response to stricter environmental regulations. This research thus selects 30 listed thermal power enterprises in China as study objects and assesses their green investment efficiency in the low-carbon transition process using three-stage DEA evaluation model with environmental regulation as an exogenous variable. Based on this, a benchmark regression model is used to corroborate the relationship between environmental regulation and green investment. Simultaneously, we carry out analysis to compare the correlation between thermal power firms' green investment efficiency and their focus on green investments. The results show in terms of total efficiency that environmental regulation significantly improves the total efficiency of 80% of thermal power enterprises compared to the absence of this exogenous variable. With the addition of environmental regulation, firms' total efficiency declines gradually in general from 2018 to 2022, with the mean value of efficiency falling by 0.068. In terms of stage-specific efficiency, the efficiency of the green investment stage of the majority of firms is between 0.3 and 0.6, which is much lower than that of the operational stage and the market performance stage. In terms of sub-indicator efficiency, both green investment efficiency and social donation efficiency among thermal power enterprises show obvious polarization, with 30% of them having an efficiency of 1 and 30% less than 0.1. In terms of green investment focus, thermal power unit renovation has a more obvious role in boosting the green investment efficiency of thermal power enterprises than do wind power and photovoltaic projects. Therefore, both governmental departments and thermal power enterprises need to take active measures in order to achieve green transformation from the perspective of green investment efficiency. Through the segmentation of important projects of green investment, this paper provides a reasonable investment direction reference for the sustainable transformation of China's thermal power industry. It also provides a rich and novel theoretical basis for the Chinese government to further improve the relevant environmental protection laws and regulations of thermal power industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid and accurate acquisition of water body information is of great significance to water resource investigation, flood disaster monitoring, ecological environment protection, and other fields. In this paper, the water boundary is optimized and extracted from single-polarization SAR images based on an improved geodesic active contour model (IMGAC). Firstly, the rough extraction results of the water body were obtained according to the adaptive threshold, and then a narrowband model was established, and the signed pressure force (SPF) function was introduced into the geodesic active contour (GAC) model. Finally, the optimal water boundary was obtained through continuous iteration. Compared with the active contour (AC) model without edge and the traditional GAC model, the results show that the IMGAC model proposed in this paper can reduce the calculation efficiency and improve the accuracy of water boundary detection. The F-measure index was used to evaluate the extraction accuracy of the three methods. IMGAC method had the highest extraction accuracy, which was 96.43%. The kappa coefficient reached 0.929. The F-measure index was 96.20%. Our study can provide a reference for water extraction and water boundary optimization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the question: In what ways can artificial intelligence assist with interdisciplinary research for addressing complex societal problems and advancing the social good? Problems such as environmental protection, public health, and emerging technology governance do not fit neatly within traditional academic disciplines and therefore require an interdisciplinary approach. However, interdisciplinary research poses large cognitive challenges for human researchers that go beyond the substantial challenges of narrow disciplinary research. The challenges include epistemic divides between disciplines, the massive bodies of relevant literature, the peer review of work that integrates an eclectic mix of topics, and the transfer of interdisciplinary research insights from one problem to another. Artificial interdisciplinarity already helps with these challenges via search engines, recommendation engines, and automated content analysis. Future "strong artificial interdisciplinarity" based on human-level artificial general intelligence could excel at interdisciplinary research, but it may take a long time to develop and could pose major safety and ethical issues. Therefore, there is an important role for intermediate-term artificial interdisciplinarity systems that could make major contributions to addressing societal problems without the concerns associated with artificial general intelligence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ebinur Lake Basin is an ecologically sensitive area in an arid region. Investigating its land use and land cover (LULC) change and assessing and predicting its ecosystem service value (ESV) are of great importance for the stability of the basin's socioeconomic development and sustainable development of its ecological environment. Based on LULC data from 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020, we assessed the ESV of the Ebinur Lake Basin and coupled the grey multi-objective optimization model with the patch generation land use simulation model to predict ESV changes in 2035 under four scenarios: business-as-usual (BAU) development, rapid economic development (RED), ecological protection (ELP), and ecological–economic balance (EEB). The results show that from 1990 to 2020, the basin was dominated by grassland (51.23%) and unused land (27.6%), with a continuous decrease in unused land and an increase in cultivated land. In thirty years, the total ESV of the study area increased from 18.62 billion to 67.28 billion yuan, with regulation and support services being the dominant functions. By 2035, cultivated land increased while unused land decreased in all four scenarios compared with that in 2020. The total ESV in 2035 under the BAU, RED, ELP, and EEB scenarios was 68.83 billion, 64.47 billion, 67.99 billion, and 66.79 billion yuan, respectively. In the RED and EEB scenarios, ESV decreased by 2.81 billion and 0.49 billion yuan, respectively. In the BAU scenario, provisioning and regulation services increased by 6.05% and 2.93%, respectively. The ELP scenario, focusing on ecological and environmental protection, saw an increase in ESV for all services. This paper can assist policymakers in optimizing land use allocation and provide scientific support for the formulation of land use strategies and sustainable ecological and environmental development in the inland river basins of arid regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The aim of this paper is to reconsider the necessity for the green transition and the key preconditions for the implementation of a circular economy in Western Balkan countries. With the objective of the research in mind, the method of analysis and synthesis was applied to determine (1) regulatory and institutional prerequisites for the green transition; (2) the need for the Western Balkan countries to redefine the model of sustainable economic growth towards the green transition; (3) the development opportunities for recovery defined in the Green Agenda for the Western Balkans; and (4) the possibility of implementing the circular economy in the Western Balkans. Main text: The main findings of the research indicate that: (1) the countries of the Western Balkan region, following the example of the EU, should define a national strategic approach to the green transition with an accompanying action plan and regulatory framework; (2) the biggest challenge of the green transition is the reform of the energy sector and the restructuring of the energy-intensive economy; (3) the countries have untapped potential in renewable energy sources and report the improvement of energy efficiency; (4) the circular economy can boost the green transition, because the countries of the region have a five-time lower value of resource productivity than the average of the EU, while the generation of waste (excluding major mineral wastes) per GDP unit is lower compared to the EU; (5) cross-sectoral governance should be more coordinated. Conclusions: The green transition might be a development opportunity for the Western Balkans, which should enable sustainable economic growth as well as energy security and environmental protection. However, the implementation of the Green Agenda is not easy, because the region faces the problem of underdeveloped regulatory and institutional capacities that might provide not only the base for long-term planning but also financial resources for the efficient implementation of projects. In addition, it is essential to understand the principles of the Green Agenda and the interaction of all activities that should enable the achievement of defined goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Weeds are one of the most important agricultural hazards. The widespread spraying of herbicides not only wastes chemicals but also pollutes the environment. In this paper, a precisely route planning method for weeding machine based on UAV(Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) images was proposed. A genetic algorithm (GA) was used to optimize the operation route. For genetic algorithm, a new route encoding approach and fitness function were presented. The GA-optimized operating route saves up to 80.03% of working time compared to uniform spraying in the experiment. This method could effectively plan the operation route of spraying machines and reduce herbicide usage. This was important for both cost-saving and environment protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental resources play an extremely important role in economic development. In the context of China's economic development entering a new normal, attaching importance to environmental protection and strengthening environmental regulations will have an important impact on the original foreign direct investment (FDI) and China's economic development. Therefore, this paper combines the characteristics of the "new normal" of China's economic development, takes 30 provinces in China from 2008 to 2017 as the research object, and uses the PVAR model and impulse response function to re-verify the interaction mechanism and path among environmental regulation, FDI and high-quality economic development. The study found that: (1) There is an obvious mutual promotion relationship between environmental regulations and the quality of China's economic development and economic development environment. Strengthening environmental regulation is conducive to the realization of China's economic "new normal" development goal. (2) Although the strengthening of environmental regulation will have a significant constraint effect on FDI and China's economic growth rate, but the effect is relatively small. (3) FDI and economic growth rate variables are mutually motivated and promote each other, but both of them have a significant inhibitory effect on regional environmental regulation. In general, under the background of the "new normal" of China's economic development, appropriately increasing the intensity of environmental regulation is not only conducive to environmental protection and promoting high-quality and sustainable economic development, but also can serve the purpose of guiding the structure of foreign investment and transforming the mode of economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Population growth and increasing demand for industrial enterprises such as pulp and paper production lead to environmental problems such as over-exploitation of resources and pollution of soil, air and water. Thus, for the importance of reducing the negative effects of incineration and landfilling of wastes for the protection of environment, two kinds of recycled paperboard mill wastes were used as partial replacement of sand (volume percentage), to produce non-load-bearing lightweight concrete. Waste type 1 consists of paperboard chips mixed with small amount of sand, and waste type 2 consists of paperboard chips mixed with expanded polystyrene and nylon. This study was carried out in laboratory scale to achieve acceptable strength and minimum density by using maximum amount of waste, in accordance with ASTM-C129 for non-load-bearing lightweight concrete construction. Therefore, three types of concrete, including concrete containing waste type 1 (replacing 0, 60, 70 and 80 % of waste and sand), concrete containing waste type 2 (replacing 0, 55, 75 and 95 % of waste and sand) and concrete containing both waste types, were constructed. Different tests on the fresh and hardened concrete, including slump, pH, oven-dry density, compressive and tensile strengths, flexural strength, flexural toughness and water absorption, were carried out. The results indicate that the use of waste type 1 is more reliable than waste type 2 in terms of concrete specifications and standard-conforming viewpoints. Results revealed that use of these wastes in concrete can save the paperboard industry disposal costs and produce 'greener concrete' for construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effects of interventions to reduce air pollution during two international events on air quality in Beijing and its neighbor cities. Air quality data were gathered from China's Ministry of Environmental Protection, meteorological data from the China Meteorological Administration and economic data from the China Statistical Yearbook. The paper uses fixed-effect panel data models to empirically evaluate air quality improvement in Beijing and other affected cities before, during, and after the 2008 Olympic Games and the 2014 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. Results show substantial improvement in air quality in Beijing and neighboring cities during the two events. However, some of the air quality improvement achieved reverted within a year after the games and within a week after the summit. Furthermore, the improvement achieved during the summit completely reverted and air quality deteriorated severely five days after the summit. It is also found that air quality in China, at least in the cities included in this study, gradually improved over the past 15 years or so. The findings suggest that sustainable interventions and incentive-based programs to reduce emissions from industry production and traffic are the key to maintaining the air pollution reduction achieved during the events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current period of rapid industrialization has not only brought about rapid economic growth but also caused serious energy shortages and environmental pollution, which have affected the sustainable development of the economy. Therefore, it is of great significance to analyse the changes in regional economic, energy, and environmental carrying capacity (3ECC); analyse the interaction among them; and propose corresponding optimization strategies for promoting regional sustainable development. In this study, a 3ECC simulation system is constructed from the pressure and support levels of load-bearing capacity. A system dynamics model is used to simulate the evolution path and action relationship of the 3ECC system, and an empirical test is completed in the Yangtze River Economic Belt region in China. A coupling coordination model and Bayesian vector autoregressive model are used to further explore the degree and action mode of the 3ECC system support and pressure indices. The results show that the model can truly reflect the characteristics of regional development and is suitable for prediction in this study. From 2015 to 2035, driven by technological progress, China's economic aggregate will grow by 223%, oil consumption by 33%, coal consumption by 23%, soil pollution by 197%, water pollution by 134%, and air pollution by 80.9%. Moreover, the coordination degree of the 3ECC supporting indicators gradually increases, while that of the pressure indicators gradually decreases, indicating that economic growth has a synergistic effect on environmental protection and energy conservation, thus further expanding the differences between environmental pollution and energy consumption. Finally, the supporting index of the economic carrying capacity and supporting index of the environmental carrying capacity have the widest influence range, and the optimization of economic and environmental development status is beneficial to the overall improvement of the 3ECC system. The influence range of the energy carrying capacity support index is small, indicating that coal and oil are being gradually replaced by other energy sources. Therefore, the research results of this paper can provide a reference for the sustainable development of other regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies that consider all dimensions of sustainable development (well-being of communities, protection of natural environment, and the competitive economy) are scarce. The main objective of this paper is to evaluate relationships between socio-eco-financial inputs and outputs and investigate high-tech companies' dynamic efficiency. Relationships were assessed by estimating Spearman as well as canonical correlations. Changes in socio-eco-efficiency through 2010–2016 were calculated using the panel data variant of data envelopment analysis – Malmquist index. High-tech companies were split into manufacturing (HTM) and knowledge-intensive services (HTKIS) sectors and, for additional insights, into Europe, North America, Asia & Pacific, and other regions. Findings indicate tight interrelatedness of socio-eco aspects and their weak relationship to the financial situation, where undesirable socio-eco situation reduces sales and return on assets only in HTM sector. Technological changes reveal post-crisis market recovery with increasing competition bringing fluctuating socio-eco-efficiency changes during the period analyzed. Pharmaceuticals in HTM and renewable energy in HTKIS had the highest efficiency changes of 0.73% and 0.81% on average, respectively, but these changes were not statistically significant. Meanwhile, for a few NACE categories significantly negative changes were found. North America featured a non-significantly positive socio-eco-efficiency change on average (only in HTM), whereas the Asia & Pacific region featured the most stable efficiency dynamics. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first research that recognizes all three dimensions of sustainable development to investigate high-tech companies' correlation patterns and dynamic efficiency throughout different sectors and world regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable entrepreneurship links entrepreneurial activities to the achievement of sustainable development in its three dimensions: economic prosperity, social equity, and environmental protection. This paper aims to explain the process of sustainable entrepreneurship, by providing empirical evidence on the interconnections between entrepreneurial activity, economic development measured by the human development index, and greenhouse gas emissions as a proxy for environmental quality. The interrelationship between these core variables is described by a cyclical process with feedback effects that makes the system self-sustaining. A simultaneous equation system is estimated based on the 3sls approach that takes into control the endogeneity of regressors and the error correlation across equations. The empirical findings support the cyclical process involving entrepreneurial activity, human development level, and environmental quality. From a policy perspective, results highlight the central role of entrepreneurship as a driving force for change and sustainable development. Decision makers should engage in supporting innovative and sustainable entrepreneurial activities, but also reducing the barriers in the macroeconomic environment and improving human capital skills, including entrepreneurial competencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environment and poverty are the focus of global concern, and green poverty reduction is China's strategic choice to deal with these two major problems. However, due to the vast territory, there are regional differences in environment and poverty in China. On the basis of this, selecting renewable resource utilization, environmental protection, and incidence of poverty as measurement indicators from two dimensions of green and poverty reduction, this paper employed the analysis of spatial autocorrelation and spatial econometric regression based on dynamic spatial Durbin model to explore the internal mechanism of green and poverty in rural areas of 21 provinces in China. The results show that there was a significant spatial autocorrelation in the poverty in rural areas among provinces, which shows that poverty reduction has significant regional connections within spatial scopes. Meanwhile, it is green that has a spatial spillover effect on poverty reduction. Therefore, on the one hand, intergovernmental governments should establish effective communication and cooperation mechanisms between regions; on the other hand, intergovernmental governments should pay enough attention to the spatial spillover effects of green on poverty reduction in green poverty reduction, so as to promote green poverty reduction to achieve overall and sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To study the effect of green industrial policies comprehensively, this paper takes uses a sample of Chinese Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies from 2008 to 2019 to study the impact of local governments' environmental emphasis on corporate green innovation. The results show that local governments' environmental emphasis has a significant positive impact on the number of green patents of enterprises. More importantly, local governments' environmental attention mainly plays its role by improving the environmental protection awareness of corporate executives and increasing environmental protection subsidies. In addition, the effect of local governments' environmental emphasis is more pronounced in state-owned enterprises, firms with low financing constraints, and heavily polluting firms. Further research finds that local governments' environmental emphasis has a significant role in promoting the number of green invention patents and non-invention patents, but only green invention patents enhance the intrinsic value of enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research bears significant implications for river management, flood forecasting, and ecosystem preservation in the Lower Narmada Basin. A more precise estimation of Manning's Roughness Coefficeint (n) will enhance the accuracy of hydraulic models and facilitate informed decision-making regarding flood risk management, water resource allocation, and environmental conservation efforts. Ultimately, this study aspires to contribute to the sustainable management of perennial river systems in India and beyond by offering a robust methodology for optimizing Manning's n tailored to the complex hydrological dynamics of the Lower Narmada Basin. Through a synthesis of empirical evidence and computational modelling, it seeks to empower stakeholders with actionable insights toward preserving and enhancing these invaluable natural resources. Using the new HEC-RAS v 6.0, a one-dimensional hydrodynamic model was developed to predict overbank discharge at different points along the basin. The study analyzes water levels, stream discharges, and river stage, optimizing Manning's n and required flood risk management. The model predicted a strong output agreement with R2, NSE, and RMSE for the 2020 event as 0.83, 0.81, and 0.36, respectively, with an optimum Manning's n of 0.03. The lower Narmada Basin part near the coastal zone (validation point) appears inundated frequently. The paper aims to provide insights into optimizing Manning's coefficient, which can ultimately lead to better water flow predictions and more efficient water management in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The environmental protection tax (EPT) reform is a major strategic measure to further implement green development and is the most important environmental economic policy in China. Using data from 3339 companies listed on the A-shares in China's Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2006 to 2021, this paper evaluates the policy impact of the EPT on corporate carbon emissions and its internal mechanism from the perspective of green innovation by the DID method. The results show that EPT reform effectively promotes corporate carbon emission reduction, and the conclusion remains valid after robustness tests such as the DDD and DML method. The EPT reform mainly promotes carbon emission reduction in companies with high executive compensation levels and high environmental information disclosure, and mature companies. Furthermore, the EPT reform promotes enterprises to reduce carbon emissions by forcing them to adopt strategic and endpoint green innovation, and this "forcing" effect is mainly reflected in internal incentives and external pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of environmental and conservation management scenarios on the permanence of the historical book collections housed at the Classense Library (Ravenna, Italy) were investigated. Non-destructive material surveys delivered paper pH and degree of polymerisation data that, in conjunction with the Collections Demography dose–response function, provide heritage managers with estimations of the predicted collection lifetimes in diverse environmental management scenarios. For the first time, quantitative measurements of paper properties obtained in a historical library collection were used to elaborate isochrone and demographic plots, evaluated against the long-term planning horizon of 500 years. The scenarios include preventive and interventive actions aiming to preserve the fitness-for-use of collection items in terms of their ability to withstand manual handling, and consider cooling, dehumidification and deacidification, as well as combinations thereof. The results inform the conservation decision-makers about the preservation outcomes of environmental management options, to be considered for further action, once environmental, economic and social sustainability of such scenarios is considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Designed to set limits to air pollutant emissions, EU Directive 2008/50/EG has pushed city administrations to strengthen their commitment to environmental protection with mixed results. However, the effectiveness of these policies remains suboptimal. Within this context, this paper provides original empirical evidence on the nature and evolution of the debate over air pollution in the EU that helps readers understand how the interplay among discourse coalitions across levels of governance relates to the implementation of air pollution directives in Europe. To provide this evidence, we apply the discourse-coalition framework to a multi-level governance context by comparing debates over air pollution and examining their evolution in different contexts through the use of discourse network analysis. Results: Our results show that the debate in the EU institutions is largely dominated by pro-environmental coalitions, whereas discussions in Stuttgart and Berlin show different degrees of permeability to such arguments. Hence, the relative prominence of certain actors and levels of governance in the local discourse helps explain the extent to which debates at the local level align with the arguments put forward by the EU institutions. For their part, governmental organizations have a tendency to act as bridges between discourse coalitions. Conclusions: This novel empirical evidence provides clues that help make sense of the varying levels of implementation of EU air pollution directives at the local level. In this regard, the ability of supranational and national bodies to align their discourse with those of local organizations might facilitate a common understanding and the successful implementation of EU policies. Policymakers aiming to improve air quality at the local level may want to consider engaging actively with this debate by reinforcing the arguments of pro-environmental coalitions. They may also want to make a special effort to ensure that the messages conveyed to supranational and national bodies are also effectively conveyed to lower levels of governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecosystem health (EH) is important for ensuring sustainable development, and the main goal of environmental protection and governance, especially for ecological fragile areas. Scientific assessment of EH can improve decision-making ability and inform sustainable development. In this paper, the effects of natural and social environment were integrated to reflect the characteristics of EH based on a comprehensive assessment system including ecosystem vigor (EV), ecosystem organization (EO), ecosystem resilience (ER), and the ratio of supply to demand of ecosystem services (ESDR) from the perspectives of ecological integrity and human demand for ecosystem services (ES). The Entire-Array-Polygon (EAP) method was applied to calculate an ecosystem health index (EHI) and analyze spatio-temporal change from 2000 to 2020 in Hexi Corridor (HC), Northwest China. The results showed that: (1) The spatial distribution of EV, EO, ER, and ESDR was generally consistent, with a low spatial distribution in the northwest and high in the southeast, the values showed an overall increasing trend from 2000 to 2020. (2) The spatial distribution of EHI was high in the northwest and central regions, and low in the southwest, reflected a moderate health level. The proportion of area with well and relatively well health was increasing, which indicated that EH showed an improving trend. (3) The significantly decrease areas of EHI were mainly located in urban areas, and the increases areas were mainly located outside of urban areas. The distribution of the EH condition has obvious orientation characteristics. The results of the study provide theoretical and practical implications for regional ecological conservation and management. Highlights: The ratio of supply and demand of ecosystem services was included in the ecosystem health evaluation. The Entire-Array-Polygon (EAP) method was used to calculate the ecosystem health index and analyze its spatial and temporal variation characteristics. The ecosystem vigor (EV), ecosystem organization (EO), ecosystem resilience (ER), and the ratio of supply and demand of ecosystem services (ESDR) were considered to construct evaluation systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the same time as the rapid development of developing countries, unreasonable conventional planning and industrialization have led to instability in rural areas, especially resource-based rural systems. Rural environment and planning continue to receive widespread attention. Based on the emergy analysis theory, this paper constructed a rural environmental value-added evaluation system with resource, development, space and environmental protection as the factor layer (including 18 sub-indicators). Based on this system, the value-added situation of the socio-economic-natural composite ecological environment of Queshan Village in Shanxi Province from 2010 to 2015 was quantitatively evaluated, and the development strategy was proposed. It was found that from 2010 to 2015, the resource element decreased from 0.17 to about 0.00, the development factor decreased from 0.16 to 0.06, the space factor increased by 0.19 from 0.07, the environmental protection factor decreased from 0.21 to 0.05, and the composite index decreased from 0.61 to 0.30. It showed that the ecological environment growth of Queshan Village was negative in the evaluation period, and the development showed an imbalance law and an unsustainable development trend. According to the analysis results, this paper put forward development opinions from four aspects: resources, industry, environment and government investment. This method constructs a quantitative analysis system for rural environmental value-added evaluation, and has certain theoretical and practical value in rural planning guidance and evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the enhancement of environmental protection awareness of the international community and the continuous promotion of green and sustainable development of manufacturing industry, water lubrication instead of mineral oil has become the future development trend due to its green, pollution-free, clean, safe, and sustainable advantages especially in ships, marine, coal mining, and other fields. In recent years, with the rapid development of water lubrication research, significant progress has been made in related research knowledge domain and discipline. A systematic and extensive assessment of water lubrication research has become increasingly important. The objective of this research is to reveal the research status, research hotspots, and development trends in the field of water lubrication. Therefore, CiteSpace was used to conduct a systematic bibliometric and scientometrical analysis of 1,792 publications from Web of Science core collection database (1997–2021). The results show that China and USA are the most productive countries in the field of water lubrication and have made outstanding contributions. Through the analysis of hot key words and co-citation references, this paper reviews the research status of water lubrication in three aspects: (1) lubricating medium modification; (2) material preparation; (3) surface optimization. It has become a research hotspot to promote the superlubricity contact interface and the application of nanotechnology. The results of this study can make a significant contribution to the development of water lubrication by providing a comprehensive understanding of the research status and research hotspots in this field. Personal understanding and discussion of research hotspots and research status are expected to provide insights into future research trends. In addition, this study will provide valuable references and guidelines for researchers who are interested in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessing the hydromorphological conditions of watercourses is a requirement of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) and national river status monitors (e.g., in Poland,the State Environmental Monitoring, and Water Monitoring coordinated by Chief Inspectorate of Environmental Protection). This paper evaluates the hydromorphological status of 10 watercourses (30 measurement sections) in Poland based on the multimetric Hydromorphological Index for Rivers (HIR). A new approach to the delineation of the river valley (small watercourses) is proposed. An analysis of the influence of river valley management on the value of HIR and its components was carried out using statistical methods (basic statistics, Mann–Whitney U Test and Ward's cluster analysis). In addition, the relationship between the components of the HDS (Hydromorphological Diversity Score) and HMS (Hydromorphological Modification Score) was analyzed (Spearman's Rank Correlation Coefficient). HIR values for the watercourse sections ranged from 0.553 to 0.825. HDS values ranged from 27.5 to 75.5 and HMS from 2.0 to 17.5. The results of the basic statistical analyses showed slight differences between the two river valley delineation methods. The Mann–Whitney U Test showed a significant difference in the test significance level of the HDS, HMS and HIR for the river valley delineation methods. Spearman's rank correlation analysis showed that most of the HDS and HMS parameters components had a low degree of correlation. The juxtaposition of the two methods for delineating a river valley and its influence on the HIR allows for a better understanding of the interdependence between its parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the two-step production of polyaluminum chloride, the insoluble solid in raw material will become waste residue. The landfill could cause pollution of non-point source and groundwater. Meanwhile, reports of Cr(VI) contamination in drinking water due to industrial pollution occur frequently. In this study, a new adsorbent was prepared by calcination of polyaluminum chloride residue. The new adsorbent was characterized, and the adsorption capacity of Cr(VI) in water was analyzed. The analysis results showed that the new adsorbent not only could provide a larger specific surface area (6 times higher than polyaluminum chloride residue) and more active sites, but also could maintain the stability of its structure. The second-order adsorption kinetic model and Langmuir adsorption isotherm model could well describe the adsorption process of Cr(VI) on the new material. The Cr(VI) adsorption by the new adsorbent is a spontaneous endothermic process. Compared with other commonly used adsorbents, the cost of new adsorbent was 1.308 $/kg, and it had obvious economic advantages. This study explored a new way of resource utilization of polyaluminum chloride residue, and the adsorption capacity could still be maintained above 2.6 mg/g after 5 times of regeneration, indicating that the material has engineering application potential. This paper could provide more technical options for environmental protection engineers, provide ideas for environmental researcher, and solve the problem of water pollution by combining with other water treatment technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid growth and development of the industrial economy with high energy consumption and pollution as a traditional extensive development model in China causes serious damage to the ecological environment. The promotion of high-quality industrial development (HQID) and the protection of ecological environment (EE) are of vital importance for achieving sustainable development to alleviate this issue. First, the paper constructed a co-evolutionary theoretical framework of HQID and EE based on the innovation–coordination–green–openness–sharing development concept and the pressure–status–response (PSR) model. Second, combining the Lotka–Volterra model and complex network theory, the co-evolution network of high-quality industrial development and ecological environment (CNHIEE) in Shaanxi Province was established. Finally, the structural characteristics and key factors of the CNHIEE were analyzed. The results demonstrated that the network structure characteristics of the co-evolution of HQID and EE in Shaanxi Province were obvious. The network was well connected, highly aggregated, and robust. Moreover, the foreign capital dependence, the intensity of industrial waste gas emission, and the proportion of the area of nature reserves were at the core of the network and were the key influencing factors of the CNHIEE. Additionally, the 37 indicators of the CNHIEE were divided into four different blocks, each of which was closely connected. On that basis, policy implications to promote the co-evolution of HQID and EE in Shaanxi Province were presented. These studies provide theoretical guidance and new research perspectives to promote the development of HQID and EE, for Shaanxi Province and other regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Along with the rapid development of the express industry and the inevitable trend of sustainable development, the disposal of express packaging is an urgent problem that needs to be solved. With the objective to the effective disposal mode for express packaging, this paper introduces the consumers' environmental awareness into the framework and establishes an evolutionary game model to explore the governing measures of the express packaging recycling industry. It is found that without considering consumers' environmental awareness, the government's reward and punishment mechanism alone cannot restrain the recycler's decision-making effectively, while the participation of the consumers with environmental awareness could drive the strategy of the recycler to converge to the ideal state effectively, which is recycling the express packaging actively. The sensitivity analysis shows that the participation of consumers with environmental awareness significantly weakens the recycling difficulty and reduces the recycling cost of the recycler, which is helpful to improve the willingness of the recycler to recycle the express packaging continually. Thereby, the express packaging recycling industry can be improved better when the consumer's awareness of environmental protection is enhanced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In people's daily life, egg is one of the main animal protein foods, which will produce different emissions on its breeding procedure. Therefore, in order to promote the development of China's layer industry, it is necessary to reduce pollutant emissions by improving efficiency. This paper uses Minimum distance to weak efficient frontier-Metafrontier Malmquist Luenberger (MinDW-MML) index model, by considering environmental factors and scale heterogeneity, to explore the evolution characteristics of laying hens breeding green total factor productivity (LHG) in China based on the data of 24 major laying provinces (municipalities) from 2004 to 2018. The results show that: (1) From 2004 to 2018, medium-scale LHG in China is the highest, the small-scale is the second, and the large-scale is the lowest. In the light of regional distribution, the western region is the highest, followed by the central region, and the eastern region is the lowest. (2) From 2004 to 2018, the overall China's LHG showed a positive growth, and the decomposition indicators were characterized by decreased efficiency and technological progress. In general, the layer industry is vulnerable and easily affected by external factors. (3) Results from common frontiers and group frontiers exist some differences. The LHG under the common frontier is lower than the LHG under the group frontier. Finally, according to the above empirical results, this paper puts forward policy suggestions to improve LHG and environmental protection suggestions for laying hens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contradiction between the exploitation of coal resources and the protection of the ecological environment in western China is becoming increasingly prominent. Reasonable ecological environment evaluation is the premise for alleviating this contradiction. First, this paper evaluates the eco-environment of Ibei coalfield by combining the genetic projection pursuit model and geographic information system (GIS) and using remote sensing image data and other statistical data of this area. The powerful spatial analysis function of GIS and the advantages of the genetic projection pursuit model in weight calculation have been fully used to improve the reliability of the evaluation results. Furthermore, spatial autocorrelation is used to analyze the spatial characteristics of ecological environment quality in the mining area and plan the specific governance scope. The geographic detector is used to determine the driving factors of the eco-environment of the mining area. The results show that Ibei Coalfield presents a spatially heterogeneous eco-environment pattern. The high-intensity mining area (previously mined area of Ili No.4 Coal Mine) has the worst ecological environment quality, followed by the coal reserve area of Ili No.4 Coal Mine and the planned survey area of Ili No.5 Coal Mine. The eco-environment quality (EEQ) of the study area is affected by both human and natural factors. Mining intensity and surface subsidence are the main human factors affecting the ecological environment in the study area. The main natural factors affecting the ecological environment in the study area are annual average precipitation, elevation, annual average evaporation, NDVI and land use type. Meanwhile, the interaction effect of any two indicators is greater than that of a single indicator. It is also indicated that the eco-environment of the mining area is nonlinearly correlated to impact indicators. The spatial autocorrelation analysis shows three areas that should be treated strategically that are the management area, close attention area and protective area. Corresponding management measures are put forward for different regions. This paper can provide scientific references for mining area eco-environmental protection, which is significant for the sustainability of coal mine projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]