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Summary: This reprint, as a continuation of a previous Special Issue entitled "Efficiency and Optimization of Buildings Energy Consumption", gives an up-to-date overview of new technologies based on Machine Learning (ML) and Internet of Things (IoT) procedures to improve the mathematical approach of algorithms that allow control systems to be improved with the aim of reducing housing sector energy consumption.

Summary: We invite you to read the Special Issue on business models in tourism, in the context of considering the principles of sustainable development. It is a collection of 14 articles published in a Special Issue of Sustainability MDPI in 2019-2021. The dynamic changes taking place in the world economy, social life, and the natural environment force entrepreneurs to change their business models. This also happens in the tourism business. The SARS-COV2 virus pandemic has increased the need for change. It is necessary to offer managers modern management tools that cover the broadest possible scope of integration of the elements of the conducted business activities, at the same time adjusted to the specificity of the market and needs of the natural environment in which the enterprises managed by them operate. This book, formulated in the light of the presented needs, aims to use the concept of business models and sustainability business models in the context of a tourism enterprise adapted to the existing conditions of tourist and spa activities.

Summary: This book is a hard copy of the editorial and all the papers in a Special Issue of the peer-reviewed open access journal 'Water' on the theme 'Managed Aquifer Recharge for Water Resilience'. Managed aquifer recharge (MAR) is the purposeful recharge of water to aquifers for subsequent recovery or environmental benefit. MAR is increasingly used to make water supplies resilient to drought, climate change and deteriorating water quality, and to protect ecosystems from declining groundwater levels. Global MAR has grown exponentially to 10 cu.km/year and will increase ten-fold within a few decades. Well informed hydrogeologists, engineers and water quality scientists are needed to ensure that this investment is effective in meeting increasingly pressing needs. This compilation contains lessons from many examples of existing projects, including several national and continental summaries. It also addresses the elements essential for identifying and advancing projects such as mapping aquifer suitability and opportunities, policy matters, operational issues, and some innovations in MAR methods and monitoring. This collection exemplifies the state of progress in the science and practice of MAR and is intended to be useful, at least to water managers, water utilities, agricultural water users and urban planners, to facilitate water resilience through new MAR projects.

Summary: This book highlights the role of research in innovation and sustainability in the forest sector. The contributions included fall within the broad thematic areas of forest science and cover crucial topics such as biocontrol, forest fire risk, harvesting and logging practices, quantitative and qualitative assessments of forest products, urban forests, and wood treatments-topics that have also been addressed from an interdisciplinary perspective. The contributions also have practical applications, as they deal with the ecological and economic importance of forests and new technologies for the conservation, monitoring, and improvement of services and forest value.

Summary: Within the framework of tourism companies and tourist destinations, the question of sustainability is gaining importance. Tourists are increasingly aware of the importance of sustainability criteria, awarding greater value to sustainable destinations. Sustainability refers to a wide range of aspects related to climate change, the economic organization of tourism, social values or questions, job creation, and the necessary protection of the culture of destinations and the environment. Therefore, there is a need for studies that consider these aspects in order to achieve the sustainable development of tourist destinations. Fundamental to this is discovering to what degree tourism companies and destinations approach these questions in the strategies they use to deal with problems stemming from their attempts to be more sustainable. Conceptual papers and empirical research on the economic, social, cultural, and environmental aspects related to tourism companies and destinations are welcome. Studies that analyze how these questions and the concept of sustainability are included in tourism companies and destinations are necessary in these modern times. This book was established for these reasons, dedicated to examining sustainability in tourism. The papers included in this Special Issue can help us to determine the new directions being addressed in the research on sustainability tourism.

Summary: This Special Issue of Children will focus on the migration arc of children from their country of origin through the experience in refugee camps and, finally, to their arrival in in a new home. It will examine the impact experiencing migration as refugees, immigrants or those internally displaced due to war and conflict has on children's health. Explored topics include adverse health conditions, trauma and mental health, best practice and care coordination. It explores specific populations, such as children with disabilities, unaccompanied minors and child separation at international borders. This Special Issue also includes an examination of new clinical guidelines, the development of new care systems and advocacy for new policies. It also provides a summary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child's specific mandate to provide for the most vulnerable children in need.

Summary: The field of Practical Theology has been slow to address the realities of environmental crises in its teaching, research, and practice. While there are relevant chapters and articles in books and journals, they are often difficult to find and their contents reveal a lack of conversational engagement. The present volume seeks to change this reality by bringing together key voices in the field from across the world to engage with the theme of Practical Theology amid Environmental Crises. It is the first of its kind. With this volume, we seek to initiate a sustained conversation on the topic by considering the implications of the crises for research, teaching, and practice in the field. With passion and a sense of grounded hope, we invite you to join us in this difficult but important conversation.

Summary: The International Conference on Sustainable Development (ICSD) was held virtually on September 20-21, 2021, with the conference theme "Research for Impact: A Sustainable and Inclusive Planet." ICSD provides a forum for academia, government, civil society, UN agencies, and the private sector to come together to share practical solutions to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The two-day conference hosted 49 different sessions across multiple time zones to accommodate the global audience, with 204 oral presenters, 239 poster presenters, and 977 total authors.

Summary: The concept of resilience has arisen as a "new way of thinking", becoming a response to both the causes and effects of ongoing global challenges. As it strongly stresses cities' transformative potential, resilience's final purpose is to prevent and manage unforeseen events and improve communities' environmental and social quality. Although the resilience theory has been investigated in depth, several methodological challenges remain, mainly related to the concept's practical sphere. As a matter of fact, resilience is commonly criticised for being too ambiguous and empty of meaning. At the same time, turning resilience into practice is not easy to do. This will arguably be one of the most impactful global issues for future research on resilience. The Special Issue "Bridging the Gap: The Measure of Urban Resilience" falls under this heading, and it seeks to synthesise state-of-the-art knowledge of theories and practices on measuring resilience. The Special Issue collected 11 papers that address the following questions: "What are the theoretical perspectives of measuring urban resilience? What are the existing methods for measuring urban resilience? What are the main features that a technique for measuring urban resilience needs to have? What is the role of measuring urban resilience in operationalising cities' ability to adapt, recover and benefit from shocks?"

Summary: "This book inquires into the use of prediction at the intersection of politics and academia, and reflects upon the implications of future-oriented policymaking across different fields. The volume focuses on the key intricacies and fallacies of prevision in a time of complexity, uncertainty and unpredictability. The first part of the book discusses different academic perspectives and contributions to future-oriented policymaking. The second part discusses the role of future knowledge in decision-making across different empirical issues such as climate, health, finance, bio- and nuclear weapons, civil war, and crime. It analyses how prediction is integrated into public policy and governance, and how in return governance structures influence the making of knowledge about the future. Contributors integrate two analytical dimensions in their chapters- the epistemology of prevision and the political and ethical implications of prevision. In this way, the volume contributes to a better understanding of the complex interaction and feedback loops between the processes of creating knowledge about the future and the application of this future knowledge in public policy and governance. This book will be of much interest to students of security studies, political science, sociology, technology studies and IR."

Summary: Geothermal energy is a renewable, sustainable, and ecologically friendly resource of energy that can be captured with shallow or deep installations, or a combination of both-alone or integrated with other technologies. It can then be employed for a variety of purposes, for example, electricity generation, space heating and cooling, agriculture, and aquaculture. Given the nature/features of this green energy resource-such as being a local, climate-independent, potentially constant, robust, generally available, resilient, almost greenhouse gas-free, and long-lived energy source-geothermal solutions can and should make a more prominent contribution to the future global energy supply mix, in addition to helping lessen humanity's environmental footprint and enabling it to attain its sustainable development goals. This Special Issue, "New Trends in Enhanced, Hybrid and Integrated Geothermal Systems", addresses existing knowledge gaps and aids advance deployment of geothermal energy globally. It consists of eight peer-reviewed papers that cover a range of subjects and applications related to geothermal energy.

Summary: In recent years, we have been witnessing the exponential proliferation of the Internet of Things (IoT), networks of physical devices, vehicles, appliances and other items embedded with electronics, software, sensors, actuators and connectivity that enables these objects to connect and exchange data. Enabling the introduction of highly efficient IoT, wireless sensing and network technologies will reduce the need for traditional processes that are currently be carried out manually, thus freeing up the precious resources of dwindling working staff, to do more meaningful and human-centered work. This reprint aims to bring together innovative developments in areas related to IoT, wireless sensing and networking. The aspects covered include software-defined network (SDN)-based IoT networks, artificial intelligence (AI) for IoT, industrial IoT, smart sensors, optimization of energy efficiency for IoT, and wireless sensor networks, IoT applications for agriculture, smart cities, healthcare, localization and environment monitoring.

Summary: Disasters such as earthquakes, cyclones, floods, heat waves, nuclear accidents, and large-scale pollution incidents take lives and incur major health problems. The majority of large-scale disasters affect the most vulnerable populations, which often comprise extreme ages, remote living areas, and endemic poverty, as well as people with low literacy. Health emergency and disaster risk management (Health-EDRM) refers to the systematic analysis and management of health risks surrounding emergencies and disasters, and plays an important role in reducing the hazards and vulnerability along with extending preparedness, responses, and recovery measures. This concept encompasses risk analyses and interventions, such as accessible early warning systems, the timely deployment of relief workers, and the provision of suitable drugs and medical equipment to decrease the impact of disasters on people before, during, and after an event (or events). Currently, there is a major gap in the scientific literature regarding Health-EDRM to facilitate major global policies and initiatives for disaster risk reduction worldwide.

Summary: This open access book sets out the contours of feminist political ecology (FPE) as a major contribution to ongoing debates in the field. As Professor Lyla Mehta says in her Foreword, the book is "foregrounding multiple ways of knowing and being, thus enabling new conceptions of politics, justice and alternatives to dominant, capitalist development trajectories". In an innovative methodological twist, the edited book engages the reader in conversations that have emerged from the multi-sited and cross-generational dialogues of the Well-Being Ecology Gender cOmmunities (WEGO) network over the last four years. The conversations explore topics that range from climate change and extractivism, to body politics and health, degrowth, care and community well-being. The authors reflect on their collective learning process as they map out the new directions of FPE research and analysis. The chapters highlight WEGO transnational/transdisciplinary conversations with local communities, social movements and different academic spaces. The book foregrounds the ethics of doing feminist work inside and outside academe and brings to life the importance of doing reflexive research aware of situated historical and contemporary geographical contours of power.

Summary: The pandemic period has caused severe socio-economic damage, but it is accompanied by environmental deterioration that can also affect economic opportunities and social equity. In the face of this double risk, future generations are ready to be resilient and make their contribution not only on the consumption side, but also through their inclusion in all companies by bringing green and circular principles with them. Policy makers can also favor this choice.

Summary: This book examines the value of Adaptive Collaborative Management for facilitating learning and collaboration with local communities and beyond, utilising detailed studies of forest landscapes and communities. Many forest management proposals are based on top-down strategies, such as the Million Tree Initiatives, Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) and REDD+, often neglecting local communities. In the context of the climate crisis, it is imperative that local peoples and communities are an integral part of all decisions relating to resource management. Rather than being seen as beneficiaries or people to be safeguarded, they should be seen as full partners, and Adaptive Collaborative Management is an approach which priorities the rights and roles of communities alongside the need to address the environmental crisis. The volume presents detailed case studies and real life examples from across the globe, promoting and prioritizing the voices of women and scholars and practitioners from the Global South who are often under-represented. Providing concrete examples of ways that a bottom-up approach can function to enhance development sustainably, via its practitioners and far beyond the locale in which they initially worked, this volume demonstrates the lasting utility of approaches like Adaptive Collaborative Management that emphasize local control, inclusiveness and local creativity in management. This book will be of great interest to students, scholars and practitioners working in the fields of conservation, forest management, community development and natural resource management and development studies more broadly.

Summary: This edited collection brings together a diverse set of original research and review articles that contribute towards a unified objective of redesigning the future health workforce. Our fundamental premise is that the future health workforce needs to be more closely aligned to population needs and be able to address emerging challenges of the 21st century. • The collection includes 13 articles (11 original research; 2 review) from nine countries. • Original research articles that contributed to this special issue came from Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Japan, South Korea, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. • The collection features a range of health professionals including medical, dental, nursing, allied health, social work, and health management workforce. This unique piece of scholarship adds to ongoing global efforts on health workforce integration, universal health coverage, and creating sustainable and people-centric health systems

Summary: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the character of academic conferences has changed. Formerly, conferences required the physical presence of their members and audiences. However, travel restrictions due to the pandemic caused a shift in the traditional conference format, thus resulting in the rise of online conferences after 2020. In 2021 and 2022, the journal "Diversity" similarly organized online conferences. The well-attended online conference in March of 2021 attracted a wide range of speakers on biodiversity, ecology and evolution, as well as on 17 publications from this Special Issue. The publications cover several timely aspects of biodiversity, such as the importance of invasive species, the ecology of urbanization, the effects of drought on wildlife in Southern Africa, the results of human activities on insect, mammal, bird, reptile and amphibia populations, and the genetic diversity of animal breeds, microbiomes and planktonic organisms. Additionally, taxonomic and biosystematic topics are also covered in several SI publications.

Summary: The interrelationship between economic growth, efficient use of natural resources, and sustainability has been of great interest to economists, researchers and policy makers. Knowledge of actual causality direction between sustainability, efficiency and growth has important implications for modeling environmental economic policies. Various serious environmental problems demand urgent attention and planning of adequate policies towards sustainability. Development of new economic and environmental policies and use of new econometric, operational research and mathematical and statistical techniques offers scope for further research. Studies were invited to address economic growth and environment: environmental problems; Air/water pollution; Health impact of pollution; Waste management; Natural resources management; Population economics; Environmental policy tools; Renewable energy sources; Business and sustainable development; Sustainable transport; Sustainable tourism; Urban and regional development.

Summary: Modern society faces various global and regional challenges, including climate change and sustainable development. In order to deal with these challenges, society must be managed properly to follow a sustainable and low-carbon pathway. To advance the studies on this topic, 13 articles have been included in a Special Issue of the "International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health". This is a reprint of the 13 articles published in the Special Issue. The themes covered by the 13 articles include the driving forces of carbon emissions, the carbon market, implications of regional and global low-carbon pathways, green finance, green growth, and air pollution. Various methods have been used in these studies, such as computable general equilibrium (CGE) models, econometric models, and machine learning methods. Most of the articles provide new insights based on evidence from China while the others focus on several regions and the global economy.

Summary: With the announcement of the European Green Deal, which defines a set of policy initiatives aimed at achieving a 50-55% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030 and making Europe climate neutral in 2050, the challenge of energy transition becomes even more critical. The transformation of national energy systems towards sustainability is progressing throughout all Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, yet the goals and results are different. Most EU Member States have made substantial progress towards meeting their long-term commitments of emissions reductions. However, some bloc members have struggled to meet their obligations. An effective energy transition requires the introduction of appropriately designed policy instruments and of robust economic analyses that ensure the best possible outcomes at the lowest costs for society. In this context, this Special Issue aims to bring into the discussion the challenges that CEE countries have to face and overcome while undergoing energy transition.

Summary: Podnebje in turizem sta običajno tesno povezana. Smučanje brez snega in nizkih temperatur ni možno, če omenimo samo najbolj neposredno povezavo. Zaradi tega je bilo v zadnjih letih opravljenih veliko raziskav o vplivu podnebnih sprememb na turizem v gorskih območjih. In o tem govori knjiga ClimAlpTour. Podnebne spremembe in njihov vpliv na turizem v Alpah, ki je nastala v projektu z istim imenom iz programa Evropskega teritorialnega sodelovanja, Alpski prostor, ter izšla v slovenskem, angleškem, italijanskem, nemškem in francoskem jeziku. Ponuja širok spekter vsebin: od pričakovanih učinkov dvigovanja temperature na turizem, vpliva teh sprememb na razvoj Alp do rešitev oziroma prilagoditvenih strategij. Glavnina knjige obravnava konkretna območja oziroma turistična središča (v celoti 22, slovenski sta dve: Zgornje Posočje in Kranjska Gora) tako s prevladujočim zimskim kot tudi poletnim in celoletnim turizmom: njihove temeljne značilnosti, izzive in priložnosti ter prilagoditvene strategije. Knjiga se sklene s priporočili in smernicami za turistično industrijo in nosilci odločitev.

Summary: Many people live in rural areas in tropical regions. Rural development is not merely a contribution to the growth of individual countries. It can be a way to reduce poverty and to increase access to water, health care, and education. Sustainable rural development can also help stop deforestation and reduce livestock, which generate most of the greenhouse gas emissions. However, efforts to achieve a sustainable rural development are often thwarted by floods, drought, heat waves, and hurricanes, which local communities are not very prepared to tackle. Agricultural practices and local planning are still not very risk-informed. These deficiencies are particularly acute in tropical regions, where many Least Developed Countries are located and where there is, however, great potential for rural development. This Special Issue contains 22 studies on best practices for risk awareness; on local risk reduction; on several cases of soil depletion, water pollution, and sustainable access to safe water; and on agronomy, earth sciences, ecology, economy, environmental engineering, geomatics, materials science, and spatial and regional planning in 12 tropical countries.

Summary: The world needs an accelerated energy transition to meet sustainable development goals. Energy planning has a critical role in providing the information that can guide decision-makers, and energy planning methods continue to evolve rapidly. This Special Issue provides new insights for long-term energy planning, drawing on the Clean Energy Ministerial Long Term Energy Planning Scenarios initiative and the IRENA LTES network.

Summary: Climate change poses a serious challenge to our health and wellbeing. The increasing frequency of extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, and heatwaves, and the direct impacts of changes in temperature have direct impacts on health. At the same time, broader environmental change affects infectious disease risk, air pollution, and other forms of exposure. The different ways in which climate change will affect health are complex, interactive, and different communities are disproportionately affected. International actions such as the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals recognise the future risks to society and acknowledge that we are already committed to a certain level of climate change. Future adaptation measures therefore need careful assessment and implementation for us to be able to minimise the potential risks from climate change and, at the same time, maximise the potential health benefits of a cleaner, greener world. This Special Issue comprises original research articles and detailed reviews on the likely impacts of climate change on health in a range of geographical settings, and the potential for adaptation measures to reduce some of these risks. Ultimately, studies like these will motivate policy level action for mitigation and help in determining the most effective methods of adaptation to reduce negative impacts in future through embedding scientific evidence into practice.

Summary: A Smart City is the perfect environment to study and exploit the interactions between actors because its architecture already integrates vaious elements to collect data and connect to its citizens. Furthermore, the proliferation of web platforms (e.g., social media and web fora) and the increased affordability of sensors and IoT devices (e.g., smart meters) make data related to a large and diverse set of users accessible, as their activities in the digital world reflect their real-life actions. These new technologies can be of great use for the stakeholders as, on the one hand, they provide them with semantically rich inputs and frequent updates at a relatively cheap cost and, on the other, form a direct channel of communication with the citizens. To fully exploit these new data sources, we need both novel computational methods (e.g., AI, data mining algorithms, knowledge representation) that are suitable for analyzing and understanding the dynamics behind energy consumption and also a deeper understanding of how these methods can be integrated into the existing design and decision processes (e.g., human-in-the-loop processes).Therefore, this Special Issue welcomed original multidisciplinary research works about AI, data science methods, and their integration in existing design/decision-making processes in the domain of energy consumption in Smart Cities.

Summary: Natural World Heritage sites, such as the Serengeti, or Natural and Cultural Heritage sites, such as the Historic Centre of Rome, have the common feature of being a treasured resource of global importance. The 1121 properties on the World Heritage (WH) list have permanent recognized value for humankind. Most of those >1000 locations are at some risk from changes in climate. Globally, scholars and managers seek to understand current and future climatic stresses, mitigation and adaptation opportunities. There is a strong need for the "So What?" in World Heritage studies. The invited papers in this volume address natural, cultural and mixed WH sites, and each offers a fresh perspective on assessing the degree of risk from changing climate and guidance on acting to mitigate and adapt to climate changes to provide new awareness and tools to improve their state of conservation for the future.

Summary: This book is a collection of all papers published in the Special Issue "Coastal Vulnerability and Mitigation Strategies: From Monitoring to Applied Research". The main focus is to provide the state-of-the-art and recent research updates on sustainable management strategies for protecting vulnerable coastal areas. Based on 28 contributions from authors representing 17 different countries (Australia, China, Ecuador, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Spain, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, United Arab Emirates, UK, USA), an ensemble of interdisciplinary articles has been collected, emphasizing the importance of tackling technical and scientific problems at different scales and from different point of views.

Summary: This book deals with sustainable agriculture at a time of climate change. It seeks to identify a number of solutions to deal with the agricultural stresses caused by climate change. These range from the identification and cultivation of appropriate crop varieties and the adoption of climate adaptive agricultural practices. Significant sustainable agricultural innovation is required to deal with these challenges. Intellectual property rights (IPRs) may be of crucial importance for modern agriculture. They serve to make R&D in agriculture attractive, by encouraging investment in new technologies and generating tradeable assets. A number of the chapters of this book refer to the principal IPRs relevant to agricultural innovation, namely: (i) patents, which protect inventions; (ii) plant variety rights, which protect the breeding of new and distinct plant varieties; and (iii) trademarks and geographical indications, which facilitate the marketing of products by providing protection for the symbols of their manufacturing or geographic origin. The United Nations Climate Change Panel has urged the consideration of the agricultural practices of traditional communities and some of these practices particularly involving rice, banana, and brassica cultivation are explored in the book. This book is essential reading for officials of governments and international organizations concerned with sustainability, as well as scholars and students concerned with these subjects

Summary: The correct management of territory and its planning based on scientific criteria in the face of the anthropogenic impacts of human activities is one of the main challenges in the 21st century. This publication includes some of the latest advancements in environmental planning and spatial analysis related to the ecological management of territory from a multidisciplinary perspective. The research papers from different researchers, scholars and experts in this field included in this collection were published by the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health after undergoing a rigorous anonymous peer review process.

Summary: This paper discusses large-scale technologies, which are proposed as emergency solutions for avoiding catastrophic climate change. Their use is highly controversial, notably because of risks of large-scale environmental damage and the danger of distracting from other climate policies. Some of these technologies are known as geoengineering or climate engineering. This paper examines stratospheric aerosol injection, ocean fertilisation, and artificial islands as case studies. As the analysis of the rules of international law relevant to these three technologies shows, international law takes on different and partly conflicting roles towards such technologies. Nonetheless, a strong precautionary legal core opposing risky technological endeavours can be identified. However, there is a danger of this precautionary stance of international law being diluted by research and new regulation that make emergency technologies appear as viable policy options. International law does not currently safeguard against the promise of such technologies distracting from mitigation and adaptation. We extend our heartfelt thanks to the Vahabzadeh Foundation for financially supporting the publication of best works by young researchers of the Graduate Institute, giving a priority to those who have been awarded academic prizes for their master's dissertations.

Summary: Buildings are important consumers of energy; in fact, they represent 30-45% of the global energy use and one-third of total greenhouse gas emissions, as well as contributing to the urban heat-island effect. In consequence, the correct design and execution of buildings, use of new materials that reduce energy demand, and efficient use of renewable energy are all necessary to reduce the impacts that occur during their life-cycle. This book shows some examples, focused on improving the energy-efficiency of buildings, in accordance with circular economy policies and life-cycle phases, including design, construction and use. The editor wishes to thank all the authors for contributing to this book, as well as to the assistance of MDPI's editorial office.

Summary: This book initiates multipolar climate/clime studies of the world's altitudinal and latitudinal highlands with terrestrial, experiential, and affective approaches. Framed in the environmental humanities, it is an interdisciplinary, comparative study of the mutually-embodied relations of climate, nature, culture, and place in the Himalaya, Andes, and Arctic. Innovation-driven, the book offers multipolar clime case studies through the contributors' historical findings, ethnographic documentations, and diverse conceptualizations and applications of clime, an overlooked but returning notion of place embodied with climate history, pattern, and changes. The multipolar clime case studies in the book are geared toward deeper, lively explorations and demonstrations of the translatability, interchangeability, and complementarity between the notions of clime and climate. "Multipolar" or "multipolarity" in this book connotes not only the two polar regions and the tectonically shaped highlands of the earth but also diversely debated perspectives of climate studies in the broadest sense. Contributors across the twelve chapters come from diverse fields of social and natural sciences and humanities, and geographically specialize respectively in the Himalayan, Andean, and Arctic regions. The first comparative study of climate change in altitudinal and latitudinal highlands, this will be an important read for students, academics and researchers in environmental humanities, anthropology, climate science, indigenous studies and ecology.

Summary: The sustainability of the built environment can only be achieved through the maintenance planning of built facilities during their lifecycle while also considering social, economic, functional, technical, and ecological aspects. Stakeholders should be conscious of the existing tools and knowledge for the optimization of maintenance and rehabilitation actions in consideration of the degradation mechanisms and the risk of failure over time. Knowledge concerning the service life prediction of building elements is crucial to the definition, in a rational and technically informed way, of a set of maintenance strategies over the building's life cycle. Service life prediction methodologies provide a better understanding of the degradation phenomenon of the analyzed elements, enabling the relation of the characteristics of these elements and their exposure, use, and maintenance conditions with their performance over time. This SI intends to provide an overview of the existing knowledge related to various aspects of "Life Cycle Prediction and Maintenance of Buildings". Relevant topics to this Special Issue include: Methodologies for service life prediction of buildings and components; Maintainability of buildings and components; Serviceability of building elements; Maintenance and repair actions of buildings and components; Definition and optimization of maintenance policies; Financial analysis of various maintenance plans; Whole life cycle costing; Life cycle assessment.

Summary: This book contributes to the conceptual and practical knowledge pools in order to improve the research and practice on smart and sustainable urban development by presenting an informed understanding of the subject to scholars, policymakers, and practitioners. This book presents contributions-in the form of research articles, literature reviews, case reports, and short communications-offering insights into the smart and sustainable urban development by conducting in-depth conceptual debates, detailed case study descriptions, thorough empirical investigations, systematic literature reviews, or forecasting analyses. This way, the book forms a repository of relevant information, material, and knowledge to support research, policymaking, practice, and the transferability of experiences to address urbanization and other planetary challenges.

Summary: This Special Issue on "New Trends in Catalysis for Sustainable CO2 Conversion", released in the Catalysts open access journal, shows new research about the development of catalysts and catalytic routes for CO2 valorization, in addition to the optimization of the reaction conditions for the process. This issue includes ten articles and three reviews about different innovative processes for CO2 conversion.Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a physical process consisting of the separation the CO2 (emitted by industry and the combustion processes for energy generation) and its transportation to geological storage isolates it from the atmosphere in the long term. However, the most promising routes for CO2 mitigation are those pursuing its catalytic valorization. By applying specific catalysts and suitable operating conditions, CO2 molecules react with other components to form longer chains (i.e., hydrocarbons). Accordingly, effort should be made to catalytically valorize CO2 (alone or co-fed with syngas) as an alternative way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and obtaining high-value fuels and chemicals. Carbon capture and utilization (CCU) is a developing field with significant demand for research in the following aspects:The development of new catalysts, catalytic routes, and technologies for CO2 conversion;The study of new processes for obtaining fuels and chemicals from CO2;Optimization of the catalysts and the reaction conditions for these processes;Further steps in advanced processes using CO2-rich feeds (H2+CO2 or CO2 mixed with syngas), increasing product yields.

Summary: The reprint provides a comprehensive review of various topics related to sustainable building design and operation, with a particular focus on energy efficiency and environmental impact. It covers a wide range of topics, including visual comfort assessment, decision-making processes of residents, low-cost devices for CO2 monitoring, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on residential energy use. The reprint also includes discussions on solar energy in urban planning, cost-optimal measures for energy renovation, and passive solar solutions for buildings. It provides insights into the use of different materials and strategies for improving the energy efficiency of building envelopes, including the integration of phase change materials and the use of reflective coatings on building roofs. Several case studies are presented in the book, which explores the implementation of sustainable design strategies in different building types and climates. The authors also discuss the use of advanced modeling techniques to simulate the performance of different building systems, including vertical greenery systems and the solar cadaster.

Summary: This is an open access book. The subject of this book is to provide down-to-earth information on what kind of actions are being taken by the Government, Local community, Businesses, Researchers, NGOs on the energy transition in this region. It gives an updated picture of the energy transition in the East Asian countries, where the economic growth, as well as CO2 emission growth, is significant. This book focuses not only on the technological perspective of the energy transition but also on the relationship between democracy and energy transition. Readers of this book can understand what kind of international support and pressure is needed to promote the energy transition in this region. Since energy transition is needed not only for combatting climate change but also for the Green Recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, publishing this book is very helpful to promote the Green Recovery and the Green New Deal world-widely.

Summary: This open access book offers a selection of research papers and case studies presented at the 3rd international conference "Smart and Sustainable Planning for Cities and Regions", held in December 2019 in Bolzano, Italy, and explores the concept of smart and sustainable planning, including top contributions from academics, policy makers, consultants and other professionals. Innovation processes such as co-design and co-creation help establish collaborations that engage with stakeholders in a trustworthy and transparent environment while answering the need for new value propositions. The importance of an integrated, holistic approach is widely recognized to break down silos in local government, in particular, when aimed at achieving a better integration of climate-energy planning. Despite the ongoing urbanization and polarization processes, new synergies between urban and rural areas emerge, linking development opportunities to intrinsic cultural, natural and man-made landscape values. The increasing availability of big, real-time urban data and advanced ICT facilitates frequent assessment and continuous monitoring of performances, while allowing fine-tuning as needed. This is valid not only for individual projects but also on a wider scale. In addition, and circling back to the first point, (big) urban data and ICT can be of enormous help in facilitating engagement and co-creation by raising awareness and by providing insight into the local consequences of specific plans. However, this potential is not yet fully exploited in standard processes and procedures, which can therefore lack the agility and flexibility to keep up with the pulse of the city and dynamics of society. The book provides a multi-disciplinary outlook based on experience to orient the reader in the giant galaxy of smart and sustainable planning, support the transposition of research into practice, scale up visionary approaches and design groundbreaking planning policies and tools.

Summary: This special issue entitled "Water Quality Assessments for Urban Water Environment," strives to highlights the status quo of water environment, opportunities and challenges for their sustainable management in lieu of rapid global changes (land us eland cover changes, climate change, population growth, change in socio-economic dimension, urbanization etc.), in the urban space particularly in developing nations around the world. It also highlights the effect of COVID19 pandemic on water resources and way forward to minimize the risk of spreading health risk associated with wastewater management. Considering the complex nature of the urban water security, it highlights the importance of emerging approaches like socio-hydrology, landscape ecology, regional-circular-ecological sphere etc., which presents a perfect combination of hard (infrastructure) and soft (numerical simulations, spatial technologies, participatory approaches, indigenous knowledge) measures, as the potential solutions to manage this precious water resource in coming future. Finally, what is the way forward to enhance science-policy interface in a better way to achieve global goals e.g., SDGs at local level in a timely manner. It provides valuable information about sustainable water resource management at the urban landscape, which is very much useful for policy-makers, decision-makers, local communities, and other relevant stakeholders.

Summary: Next year (2018), we will be celebrating the 15th anniversary of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health-IJERPH (ISSN 1660-4601). Hence, we are currently organizing a Special Issue to commemorate this important milestone. Founded in 2004, IJERPH has experienced a tremendous growth in terms of the number and quality of scientific publications. With a 2016 impact factor of 2.101, IJERPH now ranks among the top international journals in the emerging field of environmental research and public health. As described on our website (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph), IJERPH is a peer-reviewed journal that focuses on the publication of scientific and technical information on the impacts of natural phenomena and anthropogenic factors on the quality of our environment, the interrelationships between environmental health and the quality of life, as well as the socio-cultural, political, economic, and legal considerations related to environmental stewardship and public health. Its primary areas of research interests include: Gene-environment interactions Environmental genomics and proteomics Environmental toxicology, mutagenesis and carcinogenesis Environmental epidemiology and disease control Health risk assessment and management Ecotoxicology, and ecological risk assessment and management Natural resources damage assessment Environmental chemistry and computational modeling Environmental policy and management Environmental engineering and biotechnology Emerging issues in environmental health and diseases Environmental education and public health To help celebrate the 15th anniversary, you are kindly invited to submit original articles, critical reviews, research notes, and short communications on any of the above-listed topics. Please also encourage any of our colleagues who may be interested to submit manuscripts. We expect that this issue will attract considerable attention, as we prepare to celebrate the excellent scientific contributions and socio-economic impacts of IJERPH over the past 15 years.

Summary: This book is a compilation of original research articles that apply a variety of techniques to identify and evaluate water resource management policies. These papers cover a wide range of topics and methodologies applied across the world, from a local to a continental scope. They illustrate open challenges in water resource management, such as the quantitative assessment of policy impacts, trade-off analyses, understanding the water-energy-food-environment nexus, collaborative model development, stakeholder engagement, formalizing social interactions, or improving the theoretical understanding of complex adaptive systems. Therefore, this book is a representation of research areas that have emerged from the origins of water resource systems analysis, seeking to improve the way in which water policy is formulated and implemented.

Summary: Energy transitions and environmental sustainability does not occur overnight as it may take years of policy debates both from within domestic jurisdictions and from international organisations. It often requires energy saving technology innovations to drive appropriate investment decisions that can then allow energy transition to occur. There is no one global solution. Countries progress in their energy transition goals by taking small steps as demonstrated in this special issue, "Energy Transition and Environmental Sustainability". This Special Issue provides thirteen interesting papers showing examples of projects undertaken or challenges encountered in various countries, such as: Legal reforms for energy transition in Taiwan and Japan; Transition towards solar PV in South Korea; Transition to electricity driven buses in Central Europe; Vehicle transition and the development of electric car production in the United States, the European Union and Japan; Cooling solutions for buildings in Pakistan; Projects in Ecuador to replace fossil fuel use with Hydropower; The Role of Electrification in the Decarbonization of Central-Western Europe; Energy technology innovation through the application of new technologies in oil resource development; Wastewater treatment challenges in Poland; Increased climate change litigation facing Australian Energy Companies; Renewable energy solution to a Childcare facility in Tokyo; and Canadian policies to support renewable gas production from organic waste. This Special Issue provides global perspectives and uncertainties on energy transition and will appeal to all levels of readers.

Summary: This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue titled "Assessing the Impact of Climate Change on Urban Cultural Heritage" hosted at the Atmosphere journal. This topic has been chosen in light of cities' ever-growing role and immense potential in the climate adaptation and mitigation discourse and the particular challenges regarding urban heritage making and conservation. It is critical to recognise the complex set of factors governing the physical, social and political future of urban heritage in cityscapes in constant transformation and in an era of planetary urbanisation. The 10 papers (seven research papers, two reviews and one opinion piece) that comprise the issue give a broad cross-section of the issues pertinent to this important topic - accounts on practices and conceptual/methodological improvements in energy retrofit and reuse, risk mapping, urban planning, climate vulnerability assessment, and community engagement by 38 authors from seven countries are used to delineate the implications of current and likely future climates on heritage materials and systems, knowledge and practice gaps, as well as steps that need to be taken to ensure both their safeguarding and their valorisation to achieve climate resiliency.

Summary: This reprint focuses on the key concepts and contemporary issues related to corporate governance, social responsibility, innovation, and sustainable business development goals. It highlights the importance of integrating these principles into the operations of modern businesses. The reprint aims to explore these concepts, providing theoretical foundations, practical frameworks, and real-world examples to inspire responsible, innovative, and sustainable business practices.

Summary: Ruminants contribute significantly to human food security. However, the production of ruminants contributes to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that are responsible for climate change. GHGs such as methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide are produced from different processes of ruminant production. Ruminant enteric methane is a substantial component of methane produced by agriculture. This book presents novel and established methods in quantifying and reducing enteric methane emission from ruminants in different production systems. The book covers different types of ruminants including cattle, sheep, and goats. The chapters are contributed by scientists and authors from different parts of the world, demonstrating the importance of this problem and the universal drive for immediate and sustainable solutions. Although, biologically speaking, the production of enteric methane cannot be reduced to zero, high emissions are an indicator of inefficient digestion of feed in the rumen and low utilisation of feed energy. By presenting research that could lead to robust and yet practical quantification methods and mitigation strategies, this book not only contributes to the discourse and new knowledge on the magnitude of the problem but also brings forward potential solutions in different livestock production systems.

Summary: This Special Issue includes articles which discuss the longstanding recognition of diverse connections between spirituality and addiction, as well as emerging discussions regarding the spiritual dimensions of addiction treatments. The overall focus is on the overlaps between the journey into addiction and the spiritual journey, informed by the insight of Carl Jung that addictive craving and the seeking of ultimate meaning may be intimately connected. The multiplicity of forms which addiction can assume in contemporary society are the scope of the issue. The overall purpose of the Special Issue is to extend the range of manifestations of addiction which are part of a discussion relating to the soul of recovery. Through this extended agenda of forms of addiction, the Special Issue supplements existing literature on the subject of spirituality and addiction.

Summary: This Special Issue explores the cross-disciplinary approaches, methodologies, and applications of socio-environmental vulnerability assessment that can be incorporated into sustainable management. The volume comprises 20 different points of view, which cover environmental protection and development, urban planning, geography, public policymaking, participation processes, and other cross-disciplinary fields. The articles collected in this volume come from all over the world and present the current state of the world's environmental and social systems at a local, regional, and national level. New approaches and analytical tools for the assessment of environmental and social systems are studied. The practical implementation of sustainable development as well as progressive environmental and development policymaking are discussed. Finally, the authors deliberate about the perspectives of social-environmental systems in a rapidly changing world.

Summary: Regulating Coastal Zones addresses the knowledge gap concerning the legal and regulatory challenges of managing land in coastal zones across a broad range of political and socio-economic contexts. In recent years, coastal zone management has gained increasing attention from environmentalists, land use planners, and decision-makers across a broad spectrum of fields. Development pressures along coasts such as high-end tourism projects, luxury housing, ports, energy generation, military outposts, heavy industry, and large-scale enterprise compete with landscape preservation and threaten local history and culture. Leading experts present fifteen case studies among advanced-economy countries, selected to represent three groups of legal contexts: signatories to the 2008 Mediterranean ICZM Protocol, parties to the 2002 EU Recommendation on Integrated Coastal Zone Management, and the USA and Australia. This book is the first to address the legal-regulatory aspects of coastal land management from a systematic cross-national comparative perspective. By including both successful and less-effective strategies, it aims to inform professionals, graduate students, policy makers, and NGOs of the legal and socio-political challenges as well as the better practices from which others could learn.