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An objective understanding of the current situation and influencing factors of rural green development in China is an important prerequisite for effective formulation making of green development policies. Based on the panel data of 31 provinces of China from the year 1997 to 2017, this paper constructs and measures the rural green development efficiency (RGDE) based on Driving-Force, Pressure, State, Influence, Response (DPSIR) model and super-efficiency slacks-based measure (SBM) model. The results show that, the overall RGDE in China is fluctuating and rising from 1997 to 2017, and there are some differences between and within regions. The RGDE in developed areas is higher than that in developing areas, and coastal areas are higher than that in inland areas. The entire country, eastern, central, and western regions show σ convergence, which indicates that the RGDE is getting better, but there is no absolute β convergence, that means there is no "catch-up effect" between regions, but the gradient divergence showed central > eastern > western. At the same time, there is no conditional β convergence; the initial RGDE has a positive impact on the growth rate of RGDE, and the financial self-sufficiency rate promotes the growth of RGDE of the whole country and the western region, but inhibits the improvement of RGDE of the eastern region. The per capita GDP, mechanization degree, and agricultural industrial structure in rural areas did not promote the growth of RGDE. Based on the results, this paper puts forward some policy suggestions, such as promoting the classified implementation of rural green development policies, strengthening the top-level design, optimizing the existing agricultural mechanism and system, and guiding and standardizing the farmers' green production behavior.

In this study, a novel magnetic molecularly imprinted polymer (MMIP) was prepared by surface imprinting technology using 2-oxin and 6-HNA as dual virtual templates and 4-vinyl pyridine (4-VP) as the functional monomer for extraction of patulin (PAT) from the surface of magnetic nanoparticles. MMIPs were characterized by fourier transformed infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and vibrating sample magnetometry. The results showed that the molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) was successfully coupled with magnetic nanoparticles and could be used as a magnetic selective recognition material. Moreover, MMIPs have a greater adsorption capacity for PAT than conventional MIPs. The magnetic dispersion solid-phase extraction procedure was optimized and then combined with liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (MDSPE-LC-MS/MS) for detection of PAT in juice samples. The method showed excellent analytical performance in terms of linearity (ranged between 0.5 μg L -1 and 100 μg L -1 with correlation coefficients (r) higher than 0.999) and limit of detection (LOD) (0.1 μg L -1 , S/N = 3). At three spiking concentrations (1, 10, and 50 μg L -1 ), the mean recoveries were ranged between 79.4% and 97.9% with relative standard deviations (RSDs) < 4.7% (n = 3)., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest Authors have declared no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2019. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

In Bangladesh, the recent uncontrolled growth of industries near farmland and unplanned urbanization made the agricultural sector the most vulnerable and a massive threat to the food security of the country. Agricultural farms near to industrial zones face high production costs (poor air-water-soil quality, high labor cost) and low-profit margin (poor crop yield and crop loss due to frequent natural hazards). The government policy in this matter is not proper due to a lack of information. As a consequence, many of these farm owners adopt agricultural credit by themselves to manage the production cost. Basically, credit itself creates some other financial risks and the farmers needed to adopt different measures to handle these financial risks. In-depth research on this matter is important to improve the situation by providing relevant information that policymakers can plan an efficient policy framework. However, previous literature has overlooked this area of research. In this study, the researcher collected data on 400 rice farmers (debtors) from six different districts in greater Dhaka division (most degraded area in Bangladesh) and adopted probit model to analyze the influential factors affecting farmers' financial risk management adoption decision and to identify the correlations between these decisions. The empirical findings indicate that education, access to technologies, household income, savings, and distance from the industrial areas are the major factors that affect farmer's adoption choice and most of the farmers are risk-averse. Moreover, the adoption choice of one risk management tool may motivate farmers to adopt another.

Valuation of environmental goods and services are frequently spatially heterogeneous, the significance of this heterogeneity for policy analysis is gradually recognized. For the valuation of environmental goods and services in the context of attaining a better environmental status across Heihe River basin (HRB), Northwest of China by 2020, a survey was conducted employing choice experiment approach across the entire river basin. In this research we estimate the impact of distance from inland rivers' origin (spatial attribute) on the inhabitants' willingness to pay for restoration of ecological attributes. A total of 11 ecological attributes were selected including 6 land related attributes and 5 water related attributes. The present study displays the outcomes of the research planned to examine differences in willingness to pay across different locations/distances. A total of five cities and 33 surround villages/townships were included to examine for location effect, while four ad hoc base distances split samples were recognized for distance effect i.e. ≤100 km, ≤200 km, ≤300 and > 300 km from rivers' origin. The results of mixed logit model recognized that people living at different locations value the attributes differently. For instance the people of Zhangye region are willing to pay RMB 95.66 annually for improvements in biodiversity while in Gaotai the individuals' willingness to pay (WTP) for the same attributes was RMB 45.68. Similarly, the respondents' living nearer to the origin of river were willing to pay relatively higher amount for the upgradation in the degraded ecosystem services than the remainders. The results of willingness to pay obtained by Krinsky Robb method confirmed that the attributes quality of agricultural products and water quality were the most preferred attributes with the willingness to pay RMB 91.09 and 122.89 respectively. The significant results of willingness to pay may serve as a reference for sustainable improvements and uplifting of the degraded ecological attributes.

The growing appreciation of distance decay as an important parameter necessary for estimating willingness to pay (WTP) is hugely recognized in the literature. In this paper, we estimated the extent to which distance decay and individual's socioeconomic characteristics influence the WTP for restoration of environmental quality attributes in the Heihe River Basin. A choice experiment technique was used to evaluate the household's WTP for the improvements in local environmental attributes. The results of mixed logit model significant impact of distance on the individual's WTP for the improvements in environmental attributes. Findings of the study revealed that people living within 25 km from the river are willing to pay more for an increase in the river water quality level, a reduction in sandstorm days, and an increase in the area of the east Juyan Lake than the people living within the range of 50 km and much more compared to 50 km away from the river. Based on the socioeconomic characteristics, it is concluded that the level of education, age, household's annual income, and household size have a significant effect on the WTP. Results of the implicit prices for each attribute showed the preferences of the inhabitants for every attribute, where the highest WTP in pooled data was recorded for river water quality level (i.e., RMB 124.81/year) and the lowest for leisure and entertainment (i.e., RMB 0.40/year). The highest WTP for water quality suggests that water quality level was the most favored attribute compared to others, subject to the given conditions of water quality and the river basin.

This study mainly focuses on welfare impacts from improving considerably degraded river stretches of Heihe river basin and to determine the impact of spatial heterogeneity on willingness-to-pay (WTP) for integrated river basin management (IRBM). The significant WTP values for ecological attributes improvement revealed that the respondents of Heihe river basin significantly support the integrated ecological restoration program. However, socioeconomic characteristics and residential location have a significant impact on WTP values for different ecological attributes. The results demonstrate that water quality is the most preferred variable among all the river attributes in the study area. For example, in Zhangye, Gaotai, Ejinaqi, Minle, and Sunan the respondents were willing to pay 90.6, 160.44, 377.15, 65.40, and 139.21 Yuan per year, respectively, for a one-grade improvement in current water quality. Our findings also show that all the major counties of the basin concern more about water quality representing the relative importance of river water and express the maximum WTP for its improvement, while all major counties also share a low WTP for improvements in conditions of the leisure and entertainment. The differences in socioeconomic characteristics and ecological status of the respondents partially explain the disparity in utility from IRBM. In conclusion, the results based on only specific sub-basin of river basin may over or underestimate the welfare estimate.