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The issue of black-odorous water (BOW) represents a formidable challenge to the current aquatic ecosystems, and its governance exhibits characteristics of low efficiency, susceptibility to relapse, and fragmented management under the Central Environmental Protection Inspection, thereby emerging as a dynamically complex issue in the ecological governance of urban and rural settings. This study introduces Gaussian white noise to simulate environmental uncertainty and design a stochastic evolutionary game model encompassing the central government, local governments, and societal forces based on evolutionary game theory and classical governance theories and concepts. Numerical simulations are conducted to explore trajectories of the strategic evolution of various subjects influenced by numerous factors. Results indicate that under the environment of random disturbances, the strategies of the game subjects show significant fluctuations, but actively cultivating the subject's initial willingness facilitates collaboration governance in inspection. Moreover, joint construction of a "belief system" by multi-subjects, the intensity of inspection interventions, the integration of heterogeneous resources, and effective punitive measures all influence the governance of BOW, but the efficiency of resource allocation should be considered throughout the governance process. Recommendations are made finally for collaborative governance of urban and rural BOW, promoting the sustainable development of the ecological environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While urban shrinkage has extensively befallen cities around the world, the current responses to urban shrinkage have been regarded as deficient and required optimization to help shrinking cities achieve sustainable economic growth and higher quality of life. This paper deploys difference-in-difference (DID) and successfully finds, based on China's national smart city pilot projects, significant effects of smart city development on shrinking cities in catalyzing sustainable economic growth by upgrading and diversifying local industries, promoting economic growth, and providing a better quality of life for citizens through improved wages, enhanced urban environment and public service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While existing research has deepened our understanding of global urban shrinkage, studies on the governance of urban shrinkage in China remain deficient. Based on extensive field research in Suihua, in Northeast China, and applying an institutionalist perspective, this study explored two critical challenges faced by Chinese political institutions concerning their governance of urban shrinkage. First, the absence of well-articulated opinions and clearly defined policies of the central government render the governance of shrinking cities uncertain and over-dependent on the personal position of the shrinking city's immediate superior. Second, the local economic development path of China's shrinking cities often depends on land transactions and pollution-intensive industries, which appear not only to be the main cause of the worsening urban shrinkage, but also the biggest source of locally-generated income. As a result, re-industrialization as the apparently ideal strategy for local development in Northeast China undermines the local government's attempts to counter urban shrinkage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]