We use social practice theory to explore food waste produced by university students living in shared apartments. We use qualitative techniques including observation, fridge ethnography, garbology and interviews. The most important factors that led to food waste among university students were a lack of organisation related to the practices of meal planning and shopping, where students did not make lists, plan meals or conduct a food inventory before shopping. Observation of meal preparation revealed that students were unlikely to correctly sort food waste from other sorts of waste, as they did not always have appropriate bins to enable food waste separation. Thus, food waste was not properly disposed of (e.g., composted). Fridge ethnography revealed that both fresh food and leftovers were left or lost in the fridge until no longer edible. Finally, garbology analysis confirmed that a considerable amount of avoidable foods, such as fresh foods and leftovers, were wasted by students and not properly disposed of in curbside composting bins. Full article

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and working remotely may decrease the advantages of residing in populated areas. This study aims to test the relationship between remote work and changes in neighborhood satisfaction and to discern the difference according to both the status of remote work and the centrality of areas where people live in the relationships between geographic accessibility to neighborhood facilities and changes in neighborhood satisfaction. By using an ordinal logistic regression, we analyzed data from a questionnaire completed by residents of the 23 wards of Tokyo. Working remotely was found to increase neighborhood satisfaction of people living in a central (OR = 1.31) and a noncentral area (OR = 1.50). Remote workers living in single-family homes were found to be less satisfied with their neighborhoods. Less decrease (or increase) in geographic accessibility to eating facilities was found to be related to increase in neighborhood satisfaction for both remote and nonremote workers regardless of the centrality of areas where they live. The findings suggest that populated areas continue to provide benefits which will improve neighborhood satisfaction even after the start of a pandemic; however, there could be a shift of demand for facilities in central areas to noncentral areas beyond the emergence of the pandemic. Full article

(1) Background: The emergence of autonomous vehicles (AVs) is likely to have substantial implications for walking behaviours due to the availability of new transport options and altered physical environments within cities. The aim of this exploratory study was to identify AV-related factors that could affect walking at the population level and strategies to ameliorate any negative effects. (2) Methods: A total of 46 Australian expert stakeholders were interviewed about their perceptions of the potential impacts of AVs on walking behaviours. The interviewees represented government departments (state and federal), non-government organisations (NGOs), private sector companies, peak bodies, and academia. (3) Results: Interviewees expected AVs to have different effects on individuals’ ability and motivation to engage in planned versus incidental walking. While those with innate motivation to walk as a form of exercise or leisure may experience enhanced participation opportunities, it appears that incidental walking could be adversely impacted through the availability of convenient AV door-to-door transport options and automated home delivery services that reduce walking related to commuting and shopping. (4) Conclusions: Proactive policy actions are needed to optimize the potential positive impacts of AVs on walking and circumvent the potential negative impacts on valuable incidental walking that constitutes a key component of many people’s total physical activity. Full article

The presence of chlorinated solvents polluting groundwater in urbanized areas poses a significant environmental issue. This paper details a thoughtful approach to remediate a tetrachloroethylene (PCE) plume in a district that is characterized by a complex hydrological context with a limited accessibility. Through a geodatabase-driven and coupled hydrogeochemical approach, two distinct remediation technologies were chosen for the management of a contaminant plume. On one hand, coaxial groundwater circulation (CGC) wells coupled with air sparging (AS) aspire to promote the in-situ transfer of PCE from the contaminated matrices into a gaseous stream that is then treated above ground. On the other hand, reagent injection has the goal of enhancing chemical reduction combined with in situ adsorption, creating contaminant adsorbent zones, and stimulating dechlorinating biological activity. The development of an integrated conceptual site model (CSM) harmonizing geological, hydrochemical, and membrane interface probe (MIP) data captures site-specific hydrogeochemical peculiarities to support decision-making. The hydrochemical monitoring reveals contamination dynamics and decontamination mechanisms in response to treatment, quantifying the performance of the adopted strategies and investigating possible rebound effects. The estimation of masses extracted by the CGC-AS system validates the effectiveness of a new and sustainable technique to abate chlorinated solvents in groundwater. Full article

The life cycle of textiles (i.e., fabrics and apparel products) generates many environmental impacts, such as resource consumption, water, soil, and air pollution through the dispersion of chemical substances and greenhouse gases. For these reasons, in 2019, textiles were identified as a “priority product category for the circular economy” by the European Commission that proposed a new circular economy action plan focusing on recycling. An in-depth characterization of textile fabrics could lead to an ad hoc recycling procedure, reducing resource consumption and chemicals utilization. In this work, NIR (1000–1650 nm) spectroscopy was applied to extract information regarding fabric composition, with reference to cotton, silk, viscose, and some of their blends, using two different devices: a hyperspectral imaging (HSI) platform and a portable spectroradiometer. The different fabrics were correctly classified based on their spectral features by both detection instruments. The proposed methodological approach can be applied for quality control in the textile recycling sector at industrial and/or laboratory scale thanks to the easiness of use and the speed of detection. Full article

Evidence for the benefits of walking has attracted the attention of researchers and practitioners and encouraged them to develop healthier and more sustainable walkable cities. Many methods and approaches have been developed to measure walkability; namely, by using land use attributes. This paper examines the transferability of the Geographic Information System (GIS) based multi-criteria method developed in the Smart Pedestrian Net (SPN) research project to evaluate the level of walkability in a pedestrian network in Guimarães, Portugal. The method involves the assessment of 19 built environment and streetscape attributes, which were scored by a group of experts following the analytic hierarchy process. The method proved to be efficient in evaluating the pedestrian network and in mapping walkability in the study area. Around 65% of the street lengths scored above 0.60, indicating that the overall pedestrian conditions are favourable, with the best performance criteria being those related to accessibility and street connectivity. The method also allowed for the identification of different levels of walkability within the study area and the lack of a pedestrian network of highly scored streets. According to the results, the SPN method could be replicated in other cities to evaluate walkability and could be a useful planning tool to support policies towards developing more walkable cities. Full article

Swine wastewater effluent is a key source of water contamination since it contains high levels of nutrients, including nitrogen and phosphorus, as well as nitrates and refractory organic matter (ROM). ROM refers to organic compounds that are usually resistant to microbial degradation. When swine wastewater effluent containing high levels of ROM is subsequently discharged into rivers and streams without being adequately treated, purification costs for drinking water increase and there remains a possibility for harmful substances to enter the human body. In this study, we introduce new methods for setting total organic carbon (TOC) water quality standards for discharging swine wastewater effluent containing high levels of ROM after treatment. To set the TOC water quality standards, various analysis methods based on statistics, technology, and experience based on operational data of livestock-manure treatment facilities were applied. In addition, the achievability of the proposed TOC standards in livestock-manure treatment facilities and the financial burden of their implementation on livestock farms were also reviewed. Here, we set tentative values that include all of our results derived from each methodology and set the TOC standards to levels that can be achieved through the normal operation of swine-wastewater treatment facilities (60 mg/L for public treatment facilities and 140 mg/L for treatment facilities operated by individual farms). When setting TOC standards, both single and combined methodologies should be considered and employed after comprehensively assessing livestock management policies, regional conditions, and the burden on stakeholders. Full article

Water pollution from intensive livestock husbandry is a persistent social-ecological problem. Since remedies require attention to the slurry–water nexus among practitioners, the agricultural press is a strategic entry point for agenda setting. Systematic content analysis can provide insights into how farming practices and sustainability issues are communicated, which may influence farmers’ attention to the issue and to potential solutions. To address this question, we present a semantic network analysis of three specialized farming magazines in Germany and analyze their coverage of the slurry–water nexus, in particular relationships of actors and issues and co-occurrence with political events. We used text mining methods in order to analyze a text corpus consisting of 4227 online articles published between 2010 and 2020. Results show that one fifth of all slurry-themed articles contained water-related content. We found a shift over time from dominantly management-oriented content towards a politicized debate with more actors and stronger semantic relationships with water protection constructed as an insulated stand-alone issue. This is accompanied by a shift from thematic reporting to episodic reporting focused on environmental legislation and compliance management. This implies less attention to innovations for water-conserving slurry management. Despite its shortcomings, episodic coverage may open up windows of opportunity to improve communication by experts and policy makers. Full article

The paper presents a discussion concerning the development of projects regarding active travel with the policy of sustainable mobility, with active school transport in southern Poland being taken into special consideration. The implementation of the idea of sustainable school travel planning involves linking several social groups, including traffic planners and organizers, school administrators, governments, parents, and children. This, in turn, requires considering the criteria reported by all parties when choosing a scenario for the region’s development in terms of transport solutions. The following study was based on the methodological foundations of multicriteria decision-making analysis. The research purpose of this paper is to identify and classify the actions, policies, and scenarios of active travel projects for the sustainable development of mobility based on the cities of southern Poland. The evaluation was carried out through expert methods with multicriteria decision-making tools based on the MULTIPOL (MULTI-criteria and POLicy) prospective analysis technique. It allowed for the selection of the most probable policy, which covered the six actions considered by the experts to be the most significant for the development of the active school transport system in the analyzed region. Such actions are as follows: identification of walking school bus routes, modernization of crosswalk lines, planning of walking and cycling routes to schools, promoting safety educational programs, distribution of active school transport booklets and cycling, and pedestrian skills training workshops. The paper presents a new method to evaluate the policies and actions regarding promoting sustainable (active) travel to school. The innovative approach results from assembling a mixed group of people (stakeholders) as experts. The mix of experts consisting of users (pupils and parents), practitioners, and scientist experts in this field allowed us to score policies, actions, and scenarios, enabling a wider spectrum of assessment than before. Full article

An engaged community that reflects a diverse set of experiences is key to an equitable and livable city. However, maximizing engagement activities is often difficult when competing with residents’ busy schedules and hectic daily lives. To explore new opportunities in this space, we developed four augmented reality experiences to learn more about the potential for this technology to transform community engagement practices in the context of City 4.0. City 4.0 utilizes digital technologies to transform public services and the local economy. Its goal is to produce more sustainable urban and societal outcomes. Our findings suggest that augmented reality is least successful when used to recreate existing engagement practices, such as surveys or questionnaires, and more successful when it empowers a sense of agency and ownership over the process in its users. The way augmented reality situates information can aid in making public space feel personal to the individual. In this way, augmented reality’s affordances are less about overlaying digital information in physical space and more about how this can enable individuals to reclaim a sense of control and relevance in the relationship between citizens and councils. We aim to contribute: (a) novel interaction paradigms and an evaluation of their effectiveness and limitation, and (b) new insights into how to support citizens’ sense of agency in public discourse with augmented reality. This paper highlights the value of augmented reality’s affordances to bring to light new interactions between community engagement stakeholders. Full article

A wide body of research in recent years has studied either green infrastructures as providers of multiple ecosystem services, especially at the urban level, or ecological corridors and the issue of connectivity between landscape patches in the face of growing fragmentation. However, not many studies have analyzed how the two concepts can be combined to ground evidence-based policy and planning recommendations. In this study, a methodological approach for such a combination is proposed: after mapping a regional green infrastructure building upon the assessment of multiple ecosystem services and a network of ecological corridors through the resistance to movement of species, the two spatial layouts are combined so as to analyze correlations between the potential provision of ecosystem services and the resistance to movement. The methodology is applied in the case of the island of Sardinia, whose self-containment makes it possible to discard potential effects from surrounding areas, hence facilitating the implementation of the model. The outcomes of the regression model point out three ecosystem services as the most important factors that should be targeted by appropriate spatial policies if connectivity is to be increased: regulation of micro and local climate, forestry productivity, and cultural identity and heritage values. Full article

This research paper focuses on pathways towards a digital and green transition. We assess a generic pathway for the transformation of industry ecosystems in cities and regions based on processes of prioritisation, ecosystem identification, and platform-based digital and green transition. We start with problem definition and hypotheses; review related works on transition pathways, such as digital transition, green transition, system innovation, industry ecosystems, and multi-level perspective of transformation; assess the generic pathway with case studies; and conclude with a discussion of findings, outline of conclusions, and policy implications. Overall, the paper investigates pathways, priorities, and methods allowing public authorities and business organisations to master the current industrial transformation of cities and regions introduced by the twin digital and green transitions as an opportunity for radical change of city ecosystems, innovation leapfrogging, and system innovation. Full article

Many cities of the world suffer from air pollution because of poor planning and design and heavy traffic in rapidly expanding urban environments. These conditions are exacerbated due to the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. While there have been studies linking the built environment and air pollution with health, they have ignored the aggravating role of UHI. The past urban planning literature in this field has also ignored the science of materials, vehicles and air pollution, and technological solutions for reducing cumulative health impacts of air pollution and UHI. Air Pollution, built environment and human health are complex discussion factors that involve several different fields. The built environment is linked with human health through opportunities of physical activity and air quality. Recent planning literature focuses on creating compact and walkable urban areas dotted with green infrastructure to promote physical activity and to reduce vehicle emission-related air pollution. Reduced car use leading to reduced air pollution and UHI is implied in the literature. The literature from technology fields speaks to the issue of air pollution directly. Zero emission cars, green infrastructure and building materials that absorb air pollutants and reduce UHI fall within this category. This paper identifies main themes in the two streams of urban air pollution and UHI that impact human health and presents a systematic review of the academic papers, policy documents, reports and features in print media published in the last 10–20 years. Full article

Diverse opportunities and environmental impacts could occur from a potential move towards waste-to-energy (WtE) systems for electricity generation from municipal solid waste (MSW) in Lagos and Abuja, Nigeria. Given this, the purpose of this study is to use life cycle assessment (LCA) as a primary analytical approach in order to undertake a comparative analysis from an environmental impact perspective of different WtE scenarios, along with diesel backup generators (DBGs) and grid electricity. A functional unit of 1 kilowatt-hour of electricity produced was used in assessing the following environmental impact categories: abiotic depletion (fossil fuels) potential (ADP), global warming potential (GWP 100a), human toxicity potential (HTP), photochemical oxidation potential (POCP), acidification potential (AP), and eutrophication potential (EP). The overall result indicated that anaerobic digestion (AD) had the highest energy generated per one tonne of MSW processed for both Lagos (683 kWh/t) and Abuja (667 kWh/t), while landfill gas to energy (LFGTE) had the lowest for both (Lagos 171 kWh/t, Abuja 135 kWh/t). AD also had the lowest environmental impacts amongst the four WtE systems for both cities based on all the impact categories except for POCP. In contrast, LFGTE had the highest impact in all the categories except ADP and HTP. Extending the analysis to include diesel-based generators (DBG) and grid electricity saw the DBGs having the highest impact overall in ADP (14.1 MJ), HTP (0.0732 Kg, 1.4 DB eq), AP (0.0129 Kg SO₂ eq), and EP (0.00313 Kg PO₄ eq) and grid electricity having the lowest impact in GWP (0.497 Kg CO₂ eq), AP (0.000296 Kg SO₂ eq), and EP (0.000061 Kg PO₄ eq). It was concluded that additional electricity supply from AD to the grid, with its potential to reduce the reliance on DBGs (worst scenario overall), would be a positive action in environmental impact terms. Full article

Assessing the biomass of zooplankton compensates for the difference between number of individuals and the accumulated body weight of the community, which helps assess aquatic ecosystem food web functions. Daphnia are crustaceans that play an intermediate role in biological interactions within food webs. The morphology and body specification of Daphnia differ during growth; hence, it is essential to apply species-specific equations to estimate biomass. We evaluated the length–weight regression equations used previously to estimate Daphnia magna biomass and conducted regression analyses using various body specifications and biomass measurements taken directly using devices such as a microbalance and microscopic camera. Biomass estimated using an equation from the Environmental Protection Agency was significantly different from the direct measurement: average biomass was lower, indicating that the equation possibly underestimated actual biomass. The biomass of D. magna had a higher multiple R² value when length was compared with width and area, and a linear regression equation was the most suitable equation for biomass estimation. Because body specifications and biomass are affected by various environmental factors, the development of accurate species-specific biomass estimation equations will contribute to obtaining fundamental data with which the biological responses of zooplankton to aquatic ecosystem changes can be assessed. Full article

Protecting ecological security has become the backbone of social and economic development since declines in ecological quality due to an increase in human dominance over the natural environment. The establishment of ecological networks is an effective, comprehensive spatial regulation means to ensure regional ecological security. Panzhou city, as a case study, is a typical karst county and has been confronted with the pressure of ecological degradation in recent decades. In this study, an integrated approach combining ecological quality (EQ), ecosystem function importance (EFI), and morphological spatial pattern analysis (MSPA) was developed to determine the ecological sources. Ecological corridors, ecological pinch areas, and ecological barriers were extracted using circuit theory to identify the restored and conserved priority areas of ecological security patterns. The results showed that (1) the remote sensing ecological index (RSEI) and EFI exhibited typical geographical distributions, with the highest values concentrated in the northern and southern parts of the study area and the lowest values scattered in the middle part; (2) 26 patches with forestland, grassland, and waterbodies as the main land cover types were selected as the ecological sources; (3) 63 ecological corridors, composed of 45 key ecological corridors and 18 inactive ecological corridors, were extracted, accounting for 203.12 km and 163.31 km, respectively; (4) 82.76 km² of pinch areas and 320.29 km² of barriers were identified, both of which were distributed on key ecological corridors and played different roles in ecological security; and (5) 4 types of ecological security zones were established according to ecological sources, corridors, pinch areas, and barriers. This integrated approach provides a scientific method for the identification and implementation of ecological networks that can contribute to protecting regional ecological security. Our findings can serve as applicable and reasonable guidance to land administrators and policy-makers for adopting suitable territorial spatial planning, urban planning, green cities, etc. Full article

Nowadays there is a growing concern with the environment and sustainability, which means that better methods, including pollutants analysis, with less consumption of materials, organic solvents, and energy, need to be developed. Considering the almost inexistent information about the topic, the main goal of this work was to compare the environmental impacts of two analytical methods, a traditional one based on liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection and a newly developed carbon paper sensor. The selected analyte was 17α-ethinylestradiol, which is a contaminant of emergent concern in aquatic ecosystems due to its endocrine disruptor behavior. The life cycle assessment data showed that the sensor detection presents an almost negligible environmental impact when compared with the extraction step (the same for both methods) and the liquid chromatographic determination (roughly 80 times higher than with the sensor). The sensor values for all categories of damage are below 3% of the total method impacts, i.e., 1.6, 1.9, 2.4, and 2.9% for resources, climate change, human health, and ecosystem quality. The extraction represents 98.1% of the sensor environmental impacts (and 99.6% of its life cycle costing) and 38.8% of the chromatographic method. This study evidences the need of developing and applying greener analytical (detection and extraction) strategies. Full article

Climate change impacts have been extensively addressed in academia, politics and industry for decades. However, particularly within the scientific community, the importance of considering further impact categories to ensure holistic environmental assessment and avoid burden shifting is strongly emphasized. Since considering all impact categories might become overwhelming for industry, a prioritization approach can support practitioners to focus their efforts on the most relevant impacts. Therefore, within this paper, an approach for the identification of relevant impact categories is developed for the automotive sector together with Volkswagen AG. The evaluation is conducted using a criteria set including criteria groups “relevance for automotive sector” and “relevance for stakeholders”. For the impact categories identified as relevant, an evaluation of LCIA methods is conducted considering the methodologies CML and ReCiPe 2016 and the methods recommended by PEF. The results demonstrate that climate change is by far the most relevant impact category followed by resource use, human toxicity and ecotoxicity from both automotive and stakeholder perspective. Based on the evaluation of the LCIA methods, a combination of different methods can be recommended. This work provides guidance for the automotive sector to prioritize its focus on the most relevant impact categories and to select applicable LCIA methods for their quantification. Full article

Low impact development (LID) has become one of the strategies that effectively mitigate the impacts of climate change. In addition to the ability to reduce nonpoint source (NPS) pollution caused by flash floods from the surface runoff, LID has also been applied to control water quantity under extreme rainfall events. Due to the fact that studies about LID configuration optimization tended to control water quantity and gradually ignored the main functions of water quality treatment, this study aims to consider water quantity and quality to estimate the benefits and optimal configuration of LID by Non-Dominated Genetic Algorithm (NSGA-II). In addition, regarding to the outlet peak flow, hydrologic footprint residence (HFR) was considered to be the water quantity indicator due to the ability to represent the dynamics of flow changes, and the modified quality indicator (Mass Emission First Flush ratio, MEFF₃₀) was corrected to represent the pollutant transport process in a large catchment area. The results show that the flood and MEFF₃₀ reduction rate of LID are inversely proportional to rainfall duration and intensity. The benefit of pollutant reduction, which can still be maintained by 20% and 15% under a big return period and the long duration was about three times than the quantity control. Taking the cost into account, although the rain barrel had the best effect of reduction per unit area, green roofs and permeable pavements had a higher unit cost reduction rate due to the lower costs. The upper and middle reaches of the open channel and the confluence of rainwater sewers should be the optimal LID configuration to achieve the benefits of both flood and pollution reduction. Full article

Road damage such as potholes and cracks may reduce ride comfort and traffic safety. This influence can be prevented by regular, proper monitoring and maintenance of roads. Traditional methods and existing methods of surveying are very time-consuming, expensive, require a lot of human effort, and, thus, cannot be conducted frequently. A more efficient and cost-effective process is required to augment profilometer and traditional road-condition recognition systems. In this study, we propose deep-learning methods using smartphone data to devise a cost-effective and ad-hoc approach. Information from sensors on smartphones such as motion sensors and cameras are harnessed to detect road damage using deep-learning algorithms. In order to give heuristic and accurate information about the road damage, we used a cloud-based collaborative approach to fuse all the data and update a map frequently with these road-surface conditions. During the experiment, the deep-learning models achieved good prediction accuracy on our dataset, and the cloud-based fusion approach was able to group and merge the detections from different vehicles. Full article

With China’s ongoing economic development and increasing emphasis on environmental protection, the number and treatment capacity of sewage plants is increasing annually. Simultaneously, sludge production is increasing. In recent years, researchers have investigated various approaches to the environmental and economic analysis of sludge treatment and recycling systems (STRS). These investigations did not take the universal law of different capacities for environmental impact and STRS economics into account. The aim of this study was to analyze the scale effect of STRS with different technologies (i.e., incineration, aerobic composting, used in material (brick), anaerobic digestion) on the environment and economy. Moreover, the cost–benefit impact of introducing a carbon- trading mechanism into the STRS to achieve carbon neutrality was analyzed. After reducing carbon emissions through by-products of STRS, the carbon emission quota can be sold, which will generate income. The results show that the break-even scales for incineration, anaerobic composting, used in building material (brick), and anaerobic digestion are 54,899, 6707, 48,775, and 4425 t/y, respectively. The break-even scale of each system decreased after the introduction of the carbon trading system into the STRS. These findings could provide critical technical information for superior decision-making in sewage sludge recycling systems. Full article

The production of solid recovered fuel (SRF) from sewage sludge has been credited with facilitating Korea’s waste management shift toward a resource circular economy. In this study, a novel pilot-scale wet electrostatic precipitator (WESP) was developed and installed in a bio-drying-assisted solid recovered fuel (SRF) generation plant for the first time. To investigate the performance of the novel WESP, various sizes of particulate matter, i.e., total particle matter (PM), particle matter smaller than 10 μm (PM₁₀), and particle matter smaller than 0.1 μm (PM_0.1), collection efficiencies were evaluated and demonstrated promising performances. Under optimal operating conditions (flow rate of 5 m³/min and an applied voltage of 30 kV), 99.76% PM and 91% PM₁₀ collection efficiencies were achieved, and the PM concentration was 0.16 mg/m³, which met the exhaust emission standard. However, a dramatic increase in PM_0.1 was observed and could be explained by the break-up theory, binary homogenous nucleation, and ion-induced nucleation. The experimental findings could serve as useful information to understand the WESP system. Full article

As a result of negligible connected porosity—and thus, minimal matrix permeability—the fluid-transport characteristics of crystalline rocks are strongly influenced by the fractures at all scales. Understanding the flow behaviour of fractured rock under extreme stress and temperature conditions is essential for safe and effective deep geo-engineering applications, such as deep geothermal recovery, geological nuclear waste disposal, oil and gas extraction, geological storage and deep mining operations. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the flow characteristics of mechanically fractured Australian Strathbogie granite under a wide range of stress (confining pressures 1–80 MPa) and temperature conditions (20 °C to 350 °C). The study utilised a sophisticated high-temperature, high-pressure tri-axial setup capable of simulating extreme geological conditions, followed by a numerical simulation. According to the experimental results, a linear increment in the steady-state flow rate was observed, with increased injection pressure for the experimental conditions considered. Therefore, linear laminar Darcy flow was considered, and the fracture permeability was calculated using the cubic law. It was found that stress and temperature strongly depend on the flow of fluid through fractures. The steady-state flow rate decreased exponentially with the increase in normal stress, showcasing fracture shrinkage with an increment in effective stress. With regard to permeability through the fractures, increasing temperature was found to cause an initial reduction in fracture permeability due to an increased interlock effect (induced by thermal overclosure), followed by increments because of the thermally induced damage. Furthermore, the increasing temperature caused significant non-linear increments in the fluid flow rates due to the associated viscosity and density reduction in water. Considering the laboratory-scale flow-through exercises, a fully coupled numerical model that can predict hydro–thermo–mechanical variations in the reservoir rocks was developed using the COMSOL Multiphysics simulator. The developed model was calibrated, utilising the temperature- and pressure-dependent properties of granite rocks and fluid (water); was validated against the experimental results; and was used to predict the permeability, pressure development and strain of rock samples under extreme conditions, which were difficult to achieve in the laboratory. Full article

Since the beginning of 2020, the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic made it necessary to change our lifestyles (e.g., restrictions on transport or travelling and forced telework). This has also changed the environmental impact of our lifestyles. To quantify that impact, we used surveys to calculate the Ecological Footprint (EF) and environmental concern of Belgian respondents in 2021 and compared this to the EF-situation in 2017, before COVID-19. We observed that the EF became significantly lower during the COVID-19 crisis. Of course, this change in behaviour is the result of compulsory measures. Therefore, we asked about people’s willingness to reduce the EF permanently, particularly after COVID-19 and on a voluntary basis. We observed that, in 2021, respondents had a strong desire to return to a pre-COVID-19 lifestyle and that they are even less concerned about the environment than they were in the period before COVID-19. Moreover, these results hold after taking into account the effect of different explanatory variables in a multivariate analysis. As a general conclusion, there is little or no evidence that COVID-19 will fundamentally change the environmental impact of our behaviour or our environmental concern if there is no associated public intervention. There is a need for policies that make use of the potential created by COVID-19 (e.g., stimulate working from home and increased cycling). Full article

Climate-change-related extreme events impact ecosystems, people, economy, and infrastructures, with important consequences on the real estate market as well. This study aims to investigate the variation of residential buildings’ real estate values in a historic Italian city in relation to the summer surface thermal anomaly pattern and urban features surrounding buildings. Open data from remote sensing products and the national database of the Revenue Agency of Italy were used. Real estate values of residential buildings were spatially analyzed in four urban belts, and the association with daytime summer surface hot- and cool-spot zones was studied through odds ratio (OR) statistic. Urban features (impervious area, tree cover, grassland area, and water body) surrounding residential buildings with different real estate values were also analyzed. Considering the whole Florentine municipality, 13.0% of residential buildings fell into hot-spot zones (only 0.6% into cool-spot ones), characterized by very low tree cover surfaces (generally <1%), most of which were in the central belt (37% of all buildings in central belt). Almost 10% of these buildings belonged to the highest market value class revealing a positive association (OR = 1.53) with hot-spot zones. This study provides useful information to plan targeted building interventions to avoid a probable decrease of the value of residential properties in high heat-related risk areas. Full article

Climate change is a concerning phenomenon worldwide. The reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is the core of the mitigation strategies that are effective countermeasures to address a changing climate in the long term. Nevertheless, the need for short-term solutions regarding adaptation to climate change (ACC) has gained growing interest in the scientific community and in European institutions. European and national ACC principles are being integrated in strategies and plans. In Italy, some regions have adopted ACC principles in strategic plans, which influence the whole local planning system and persuade local communities to become more climate-resilient. This study focuses on the mainstreaming of ACC into strategies, plans, programs, and projects (SPPPs) adopted by the following Italian cities: Bologna, Milan, Naples, Rome, Turin, and Venice. We scrutinize the contents of SPPPs with respect to four criteria: (i) references to strategies or plans for ACC; (ii) inclusion of ACC objectives and (iii) measures; and (iv) references to—or the inclusion of—climatic analysis on historical series and/or future projections. We found out that most SPPPs adopted by the cities have considered ACC in a promising way, i.e., all the cities are inclined to promote ACC, despite three of them lacking a municipal ACC strategy or plan and a National Adaptation Plan not being in force. Full article

An increase in the price of branded feed has been a major problem for the poultry subsector of Nigerian agriculture, and brand switching for a cheap feed at the expense of quality is a common strategy used by egg-producing farmers. Using descriptive statistics, the Markov chain model and the logistic regression model, our study shows that almost 96% of the egg producers use branded feed while 43.1% switched feed brands because of the increase in the price of their preferred brands. Most farmers used Chikun (39.3%) and Top feed (23.2%) six months before data collection and during data collection, respectively. Our study found that approximately 37% of the feed sellers sold at least 10–50 bags per day. We revealed great inequality regarding market concentration: 50% of the feed sellers accounted for 89.5% of the total bags of feed sold per day. Hybrid had the highest customer loyalty. The study shows that Chikun gained 23.7% and 7.1% from Hybrid and Top feed, respectively, while Hybrid gained 36.0% and 35.7% from Chikun and Top feed (change in loyalty by egg producers), respectively. Membership of an association, distance to feed sellers, flock size and the average price of feed per bag were factors that influenced brand switching of poultry feed among egg producers. The study recommends that the government assists in subsidizing the price of critical ingredients (maize and soya bean) in feed production to prevent the price of eggs (the cheap source of protein) from becoming out of reach for most Nigerians. Full article

The paper proposes a comprehensive and operational definition of Sustainable Food Packaging (SFP). Sustainability is a multifaceted concept, yet most SFP conversations decline it as a mere material substitution issue. The efforts of regulators, packaging producers, food companies, and consumers towards the design and adoption of SFP products are likely to fail without a common understanding of the multiple means by which food packaging contributes to sustainability. Based on an extensive literature review and the contributions of SFP innovation experts, the paper builds a Food Packaging Sustainability Framework (FPSF) that encompasses the three main dimensions of SFP, namely environmental conservation, food safety, and social value, and operationalizes them in terms of objectives and activable levers. The framework can be used as a tool to search and evaluate food packaging products, a conceptual guide for SFP design, and a narrative platform for coordinating supply chain actors, including consumers. The experimental activities applying FPSF gathered the different actors in the supply chain to jointly adopt the integrated model that distributes environmental, social, and economic benefits along the entire production chain. Full article

Faced with the current situation of the decay and alienation of traditional public space and the broken and disorderly spatial structure caused by the rapid urbanization of the Chinese countryside, rural micro-landscape creation has become an effective way to improve human living environments. However, it is currently difficult for rural micro-landscape construction to achieve the sustainable development of social benefits due to the lack of scientific design guidelines. Evaluating the social benefits of completed projects and identifying the important influencing factors are key to realizing the evidence-based design of rural micro-landscapes. To this end, this study deduces the mechanism of social benefit generation based on the psychological process of spatial perception and establishes a structural equation model containing compound influence pathways to measure the social benefits of micro-landscapes. The evaluation model consists of four latent variables, “physical element characteristics”, “perceptual quality”, “cognitive experience”, and “activity behavior”, and 35 observed variables. The researchers selected 18 micro-landscape areas in Jinjiang City, Fujian Province, China, as the survey sample and analyzed the influence of the potential variables and the explanatory power of the observed variables through a quantitative analysis of objective environmental elements and perception data from 102 respondents. The results showed that “perceptual quality” and “cognitive experience” had the greatest direct effect on social benefits, and, based on the progressive influence relationships among the dimensions, “physical element characteristics” dominated the total social benefits through direct and indirect means. Compared with single-function green space, comfortable and diverse artificial facilities encourage residents to enter and use micro-landscapes and contribute to their social benefits. The purpose of this paper is to explore the ideal form of rural micro-landscape creation and provide a theoretical basis for the future practice of high-quality and sustainable rural micro-landscape construction. Full article

Underground ecosystems are often of interest for the tourism industry due to their important naturalistic and cultural heritage. Since these underground ecosystems are almost completely isolated, external agents (such as human presence) can easily disrupt their chemico-physical and biological processes, which can affect, sometimes irrevocably, their natural equilibrium, placing the preservation of such sites at risk. The most sensible managers of caves, catacombs, mines, and all the accessible cultural sites are searching for methods to control these dynamics and the modeling appears to be effective in preventing scenarios of the known impacts as well as suggesting strategies for their mitigation. In this study, by employing finite element analysis by the COMSOL Multiphysics software and reproducing, in a simplified way, a section of the tourist trail of the Pertosa-Auletta Cave (Italy), for the first time we provided a fact-finding survey of the airflow and the scattering and subsequent deposition of particles transported by tourists. Taking into account discontinuities in the pathway, the simulations rebuilt the possible natural airflow line, reproducing the particle movements induced by different tourist loads, whose high numbers increase the swirling movement of air masses, promoting a higher dispersion of particles, even in the remote cave areas. Performed simulations clearly indicated both the speed and direction followed by particles, as well as deposition sites, highlighting potential hotspots of damage, and demonstrating that the employed approach can be an excellent tool for planning the management of these extraordinary ecosystems, foretelling anthropogenic impacts, and supporting managers in decision-making processes. Full article

The impact of climate change and related hazards such as floods, heatwaves, and sea level rise on human lives, cities, and their hinterlands depends not only on the nature of the hazard, but also on urban development, adaptation, and other socioeconomic processes that determine vulnerability and exposure. Spatial planning can reduce climate risk not just by influencing the exposure, but also by addressing social vulnerability. This requires that relevant information is available to planners and that plans are implemented and coordinated between sectors. This article is based on a research project in Thailand, particularly on the results of multi-sectoral workshops in the case study region of the Andaman Coast in southern Thailand, and draws upon climate risk, spatial planning, and systems thinking discourses. The article formulates recommendations for planning in the context of Thailand that are relevant for other rapidly growing and urbanizing regions. Among other conclusions, it suggests that systems thinking approaches and cross-sectoral strategies are ways to grasp the interdependencies between and within climate risk and spatial development challenges. Full article

The current study was conducted to assess the level and spatial distribution of metal pollution in surface water, soil, and sediment samples from the Arieș River basin, located in central Romania, an area impacted by various mining and industrial operations. Several pollution indices, spatial distributions, cluster analyses, principal component analyses, and heat maps were applied for evaluating the contamination level with Ni, Cu, Zn, Cd, Pb, Mn, As, and Hg in the area. Based on the results of the Heavy-Metal Pollution Index and of the Heavy-Metal Evaluation Index of the surface-water samples, the middle part of the Arieș River basin, near and downstream of the gold mine impoundment, was characterized by high pollution levels. The metal concentration was higher near the tailing impoundment, with increased levels of Cu, Ni, Zn, and Pb in the soil samples and As, Cd, Pb, Na, K, Ca, Mn, and Al in the sediment samples. Ca (23.7–219 mg/L), Mg (2.55–18.30 mg/L), K (0.64–14.70 mg/L), Al (0.06–22.80 mg/L), and Mn (0.03–22.40 mg/L) had the most remarkable spatial variation among the surface-water samples, while various metal contents fluctuated strongly among the sampling locations. Al varied from 743 to 19.8 mg/kg, Fe from 529 to 11.4 mg/kg, Ca from 2316 to 11.8 mg/kg, and Mg from 967 to 2547 mg/kg in the soil samples, and Al varied from 3106 to 8022 mg/kg, Fe from 314 to 5982 mg/kg, Ca from 1367 to 8308 mg/kg, and Mg from 412 to 1913 mg/kg in the sediment samples. The Potential Ecological Risk Index values for soil and sediments were in the orders Cu > Ni > Pb > Hg > Cr > As > Mn > Zn > Cd and As > Cu > Cr > Cd > Pb > Ni > Hg > Mn > Zn, respectively, and the highest values were found around the gold mine impoundment. Full article

Air pollution, as one of the most significant environmental challenges, has adversely affected the global economy, human health, and ecosystems. Consequently, comprehensive research is being conducted to provide solutions to air quality management. Recently, it has been demonstrated that environmental parameters, including temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, air pressure, and vegetation, interact with air pollutants, such as particulate matter (PM), NO₂, SO₂, O₃, and CO, contributing to frameworks for forecasting air quality. The objective of the present study is to explore these interactions in three Iranian metropolises of Tehran, Tabriz, and Shiraz from 2015 to 2019 and develop a machine learning-based model to predict daily air pollution. Three distinct assessment criteria were used to assess the proposed XGBoost model, including R squared (R²), Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE), and Mean Absolute Error (MAE). Preliminary results showed that although air pollutants were significantly associated with meteorological factors and vegetation, the formulated model had low accuracy in predicting (R²_PM2.5 = 0.36, R²_PM10 = 0.27, R²_NO2 = 0.46, R²_SO2 = 0.41, R²_O3 = 0.52, and R²_CO = 0.38). Accordingly, future studies should consider more variables, including emission data from manufactories and traffic, as well as sunlight and wind direction. It is also suggested that strategies be applied to minimize the lack of observational data by considering second-and third-order interactions between parameters, increasing the number of simultaneous air pollution and meteorological monitoring stations, as well as hybrid machine learning models based on proximal and satellite data. Full article

The current need to develop more sustainable processes and products requires the study of new materials. In the field of plastic materials, the need to develop 100% bio-based materials that meet market requirements is evident. In this sense, the present work aims to explore the potential of rapeseed waste as a reinforcement of a bio-based plastic matrix that does not generate new sub-waste. For this purpose, three types of processing of rapeseed residues have been studied: (i) milling; (ii) mechanical process; (iii) thermomechanical process. In addition, the reinforcing capacity of these materials, together with the need for an optimized coupling agent at 6 wt.%, has been verified. The micromechanics of the materials have been evaluated to determine the development of these fibers in the composite material. The results obtained show remarkable increases in mechanical properties, reaching more than 141% in tensile strength and 128% in flexural strength. There is a remarkable difference in the impact behavior between the materials with milled rapeseed and the fibers obtained by mechanical or thermomechanical processes. It was found that by sustainable design it is possible to achieve a 76.2% reduction in the amount of plastic used to manufacture material with the same mechanical properties. Full article

In recent years, research has focused on verifying various ways of dosing organic matter into the soil in Central European conditions. The main reason for this is to search for the optimal management methods for soils with permanent vegetation. In this article, we state and evaluate the results of experiments carried out at the Lednice experimental site (Sauvignon Blanc variety) and the Velké Bílovice experimental site (Pinot Gris variety) between 2018 and 2020. The experiments evaluated the deep placement of compost and compost enriched with lignohumax at a rate of 30 t·ha⁻¹ in the areas around vineyard tree trunks on the basic physical properties of the soil and the yield and quality of grapes. Results proved the positive effect of compost heaps and compost combined with the applied lignohumax on improving soil density (2–10% difference compared with the unfertilized reference variant) and porosity, which ultimately resulted in improved soil moisture conditions at both experimental sites (8–25% difference compared with the unfertilized reference variant). At the same time, the results demonstrated the positive effect of the applied compost and the chosen method of application on the yield and quality of grapes. In the case of Sauvignon Blanc, the increase in yield in the fertilized variants was 12–34%, while, in the case of Pinot Gris, it ranged from 24 to 33%. Among qualitative indicators, the grapes of both varieties were evaluated for sugar content, total acidity, pH, and amount of yeast assimilable nitrogen. In this case, results were not unambiguous in favor of fertilized variants; however, in most cases, fertilization had a positive effect. Full article

The United Nations 2030 Agenda is a plan designed to encourage prosperity that is respectful of the planet and its inhabitants. The Agenda will help introduce the concept of education for sustainability (EfS) to a wider population in order to promote inter- and trans-disciplinary knowledge about sustainability. Connecting Earth Sciences (ES) with sustainability allows us to deal with the ethical dimensions and the social implications of this field. The belief is that improving the delivery of knowledge around sustainability issues will make visible the potential of ES education as a key component of EfS. The aim of this paper is to understand whether the young Italian ES community has sufficient knowledge of and a shared interest in, sustainability. The conviction is that awareness of these topics among the younger generations is fundamental to building a new pedagogical paradigm. This study shows the results of a survey taken by participants of BeGeo 2021, the Italian national congress dedicated to young geoscientists, held in Napoli in October 2021. The majority of respondents had limited knowledge about sustainability, and only a few had attended academic activities that included these topics. Nonetheless, the importance of sustainability is well recognized and there is a great need to increase the number of activities connected to EfS. Full article

On a European scale, the existing building stock has poor energy performance and particularly vulnerable structures. Indeed, most of the existing buildings were built before the introduction of energy standards and under structural safety criteria different from those currently required. It is therefore necessary the intervention in existing buildings according to an integrated approach that contemplates both the structural safety and the energy efficiency of buildings. This study, consistently with the objectives of the European research project “Proactive synergy of integrated Efficient Technologies on buildings’ Envelopes (Pro-GET-OnE)”, proposes a retrofit intervention for a student dormitory of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. The scope of the evaluation is to understand how an integrated intervention, that implies a structural and energy retrofit, as well as a spatial redistribution, leads to an improvement of the Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ). In detail, the structural retrofit was performed through exoskeleton that leads to the addition of new living spaces and to a remodeling of the building facades. The energy retrofit regarded all three levers of energy efficiency, and thus the building envelope, the microclimatic control systems, and the systems from renewable sources. The integrated intervention, in addition to a reduction of energy demand, has led to advantages in terms of IEQ. Thermal comfort, both during summer and winter, is improved and the hours of suitable CO₂ concentration pass from 34% in the pre-retrofit stage up to 100% in the post retrofit stage. Full article

Climate change is seriously impacting coastal biodiversity and the benefits it provides to humans. This issue is particularly relevant in the case of the European Union’s Natura 2000 network of areas for nature protection, where the sensitivity of local ecosystems calls for intervention to increase resistance and resilience to climate-related risks. Given the complex ways in which climate can influence conservation hotspot areas, there is a need to develop effective strategic approaches and general operational models to identify priorities for management and inform adaptation and mitigation measures. Here, a novel methodological proposal to perform climate risk assessment in Natura 2000 sites is presented that implements the systematic approach of ISO 14090 in combination with the theoretical framework of ecosystem services assessment and local stakeholder participation to identify climate-related issues for local protected habitats and improve the knowledge base needed to plan sustainable conservation and restoration measures. The methodology was applied to five Natura 2000 sites located along the Adriatic coast of Italy and Slovenia. Results show that each of the assessed sites, despite being along the coast of the same sea, is affected by different climate-related issues, impacting different habitats and corresponding ecosystem services. This novel methodology enables a simple and rapid screening for the prioritization of conservation actions and of the possible further investigations needed to support decision making, and was found to be robust and of general applicability. These findings highlight the importance of designing site-specific adaptation measures, tailored to address the peculiar response to climate change of each site in terms of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Full article

This article describes the multi-function of the metropolitan agricultural parks (MAPs) in Milan (Parco Agricolo Sud Milano) and Naples (Parco De Filippo) and their resilience within the last COVID-19 lockdown period. These parks play an important role in the urban regeneration and social inclusion processes in their relative metropolitan areas. Nevertheless, the restrictions imposed to limit COVID-19 contagions have imposed their closure or severely limited their activities, with evident consequences for the local population’s well-being. This study’s novelty is twofold: it is the first study examining the resilience and sustainability impact of MAPs during COVID-19; additionally, it is the first survey making use of Milan and Naples practices. The work uses primary and secondary data and mixed methods. Exploiting a document analysis and the elaboration of a semi-structured interview with the directors, the article lists the multiple functions of the parks and underlines their multidimensional governance vocations for fostering sustainable development—environmental, economic and social functions. The study also reveals that, during the lockdown, the parks’ activities were strongly reduced or restructured. Recreational and educational activities were lifted in Parco Agricolo Sud in Milan whilst local farms restructured their food supply and fostered their network and linkages with the urban distribution channels. MAP in Naples had to stop its activities and reorganize into a smart-working system. Lastly, our study found that economic and farm network activities were resumed with greater urgency in Milan, whereas in Naples the recovery of the social practices has taken on greater importance. Full article

Investing labor time in herbage measurements is important for precision pasture management. In this study, the labor input of three smart herbage measurement tools—multispectral imagery linked to an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), a semi-automated rising plate meter (RPM), and near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) of cut herbage samples—and of direct observation was modeled based on the REFA work element method. Three to five users were observed during work execution to identify best-practice workflows. Time measurements were conducted using video footage. The resulting standard times of work elements were used to model labor input for herbage measurements in different farm sizes (i.e., milking platforms of 6–100 ha) and subdivisions of a farm’s milking platform (i.e., 4–45 paddocks). Labor time requirement differed between the smart farming tools (0.7–5.9 h) depending on the farm size and milking platform scenario. The labor time requirement increased for all tools with an increase in farm size and was lowest for the RPM. For the UAV tool, it did not increase noticeably when the division of the milking platform changed. Nevertheless, the potential to save time was identified for the UAV and the NIRS. Therefore, the automation of certain steps in the workflows would contribute to sociotechnological sustainable pasture management. Full article

Conventionally, a manufactured product undergoes a quality control process. The quality control department mostly ensures that the dimensions of the manufactured products are within the desired range, i.e., the product either satisfies the defined conformity range or is rejected. Failing to satisfy the conformity range increases the manufacturing cost and harms the production rate and the environment. Conventional quality control departments take samples from the given batch after the manufacturing process. This, in turn, has two consequences, i.e., low-quality components being delivered to the customer and input energy being wasted in the rejected components. The aim of this paper is to create a high-precision measuring (metrology)-based system that measures the dimension of an object in real time during the machining process. This is accomplished by integrating a vision-based system with image processing techniques in the manufacturing process. Experiments were planned using an experimental design which included different lightning conditions, camera locations, and revolutions per minute (rpm) values. Using the proposed technique, submillimeter dimensional accuracy was achieved at all the measured points of the component in real time. Manual validation and statistical analysis were performed to check the validity of the system. Full article

Changing and reconstructing the ecological space of urban agglomerations is inevitable for ecological conservation and a scientific problem that needs urgent attention from geography, ecology, and urban and rural planning. Using ArcGIS and other software for data processing, this study established a spatial attribute database, constructed a land use conversion matrix of the Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan (CZX) urban agglomeration’s ecological space, and quantitatively analyzed the main changes in ecological land. Using a trained cellular automata model with predicted land use in 2035 as the threshold value, the simulation research was presented by creating two simulation scenarios for the spatial distribution of land use by 2035 in the “Green Heart” area of the CZX urban agglomeration. The simulation results were compared, and the constraining role of land use suitability evaluation on ecological space evolution was analyzed. This study found that the total area of ecological space in the Green Heart area saw a rapid reduction, and it predicted that, by 2035, the total area of the CZX Green Heart area will have decreased. Comparing the two simulation scenarios proved the hypothesis that zoning ecological space reconstruction based on a land suitability evaluation can effectively protect ecological space and ensure ecological network functions are harnessed. Full article

Landscape fragmentation caused by road infrastructures represents a major threat to the genetic diversity of a region. The resulting genetic isolation between subpopulations may lead to consanguinity, and consequently to population collapse and extinction. However, the construction of wildlife crossings can help maintain connectivity. In the present paper, we evaluated the genetic spatial structuring of populations of wild boars (Sus scrofa) in three areas of the Geneva region connected by an ecological corridor. Those areas are cut off either by a highway that is crossed by a wildlife overpass or by an anthropized sector. Genetic profiling with 9 nuclear microsatellite markers yielded 61 single profiles, which allowed for clustering, parentage, and linkage disequilibrium analyses, uncovering the populations’ genetic structure. We also evaluated whether the genetic structure was affected by the sex of individuals. In our analyses, all individuals clustered into a single genetic group, suggesting that no structure limited significantly the gene flow in the region. However, a recent admixture indicated a potential increase in the gene flow between two of the subpopulations due to the wildlife overpass, while the other part of the ecological corridor was not or was only partially functional. Genetic distances between males were significantly higher than between females, although the role of sex remains unclear as to its influence on population genetics. Finally, in order to avoid a subregion becoming fully isolated, urbanization planning should consider this genetic evaluation and proceed with further monitoring, especially by focusing on species more sensitive to landscape fragmentation. Full article

School culture includes values, principles, and criteria. It is an integral part of sustainability education, of which climate change education (CCE) is seen as a way to improve students’ ability to take action to mitigate climate change. This survey aimed to investigate Finnish student teachers’ views of factors important in implementing CCE in school culture and their abilities as teachers to promote CCE. Thirty-six student teachers wrote essays regarding the implementation of school culture and responded to a questionnaire concerning their ability to act as climate change (CC) educators and the challenges they identified in teaching and learning about it. Inductive content analysis was used to study the essays. In student teachers’ answers, six themes to implement in school culture were identified: elements, work community, teacher’s impact, students in the centre, actors outside the school, and challenges. The student teachers highlighted challenges, such as views that deny CC and challenge the transformation of school culture to support sustainable development. The suggested ways to support CCE in daily school life that were very concrete, such as recycling and food education. Student teachers found their own ability to act as climate educators to be relatively good. They identified challenges, especially in motivating students to learn about CC and to participate and take action towards a climate-friendly lifestyle. Students’ conflicting attitudes, values, and beliefs related to CC, reinforced by their inner circle, were seen as challenges in teaching and learning about CC. Despite these challenges, transforming a school culture to support CCE should be the goal of every school. Full article

We may translate anthropogenic climate change as a reaction of our planet to our unsustainable economic activities. This research explores whether environmental policies have been impacted by extreme climatic events like droughts, floods, storms, tornados, and wildfires. We use yearly panel data from 1990 to 2017 for the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries to examine such a relationship. To have an impartial analysis, we control major variables influencing environmental policies such as energy consumption, gross domestic product (GDP), population, technology, head of the state’s political affiliation, carbon emission, and waste generation. The analysis results suggest that policymakers make more stringent environmental decisions as the death rate increases and environmental threats become more imminent putting human life is at risk; this correlation is stronger in the case of European Countries. Full article

This study investigated how goal frames (gain, non-loss, loss) either with or without efficacy statements affect consumers’ support for climate-change policy. Addressing the goal-framing literature’s difficulty in establishing a guiding theory with consistent findings, we (1) propose fear appeal theory as an alternative framework to guide goal-framing research; (2) test five fear appeal variables (fear, perceived threat, hope, perceived efficacy, and message processing) as mediators of goal-framing effects on policy support; and (3) highlight four common goal-framing confounds that may partly underlie the literature’s inconsistent findings. Aligning with fear appeal theory, results from a carefully controlled experiment revealed that a more threatening loss frame paired with an efficacy statement produced the strongest pro-policy attitudes and the greatest willingness-to-pay by successfully balancing fear/threat with hope/efficacy and by producing deeper message processing. Full article

It is evident that relations between political conditions and community development have become sophisticated in recent years. More people now live in urbanized areas, and this ongoing urbanization has various ramifications. Many countries are facing swift urban transformation which alters their regional development patterns. Urban sprawl, migration and rural depopulation, regional inequalities, increasing urban poverty, and social injustice are some of these emerging problems. Assessing regional development for identifying the aforementioned predicaments is really imperative and related to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11. However, there are limited studies that focus on the assessment of regional sustainable development at both national and regional scales, simultaneously. Thus, this study aims to fill the gap by developing a robust method that can assess and compare the level of sustainability in various regions and at varying scales. This helps to identify areas where urgent prevention or mitigation strategies and action plans are required. In this study, we strived to evaluate Iran’s regions and Tehran’s provinces based on sustainability indicators. To end this, the authors use factor analysis and F’ANP model in both assessments. The results of the study show that Tehran Province was the most developed province, and its F’ANP result was 2.006. Tehran is 10% more sustainable than the third region in the country which is Khorasan Razavi. Isfahan and Khorasan Razavi provinces were in the next in rank with scores of 1.984 and 1.8, respectively. At the bottom of the list, the northern Khorasan, Ilam, and Kohkiloye-Boyerahmad provinces were in the lowest ranked in terms of access to sustainability indices. It is patently obvious that Iran suffers from uneven development, and the majority of border provinces have moderate or bad situations. This uneven development also intensifies migration to Tehran, which already has one-sixth of Iran’s population which has led todeteriorating social inequity and environmental injustice, nationally. The results of the regional assessment of Tehran also show that there is uneven development in Tehran Province. Tehran County is twice as good and sustainable as 68 percent of the counties in this region. The F’ANP result for Tehran County was 0.580, and it has been ranked first over a period due to the exceptional number of facilities in this region. Tehran County became 20% more sustainable during this decade. After Tehran, Firoozkoh and Damavand counties were in the next ranks with scores of 0.389 and 0.343, respectively. Qarchak, Ghods, and Baharestan counties were the weakest based on the sustainability indices, and their F’ANP results were below 0.2. Full article

In this paper, we propose a system dynamics (SD) model to examine the dynamics of an informal artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) supply chain that has interactions with the illegal gold supply chain in the Amazon rainforest region, Madre de Dios (MdD), Peru. In order to examine the system under climate impacts and validate the model, we run it under a flood scenario, which is one of the main climate impacts that causes disruption in mining activities. Our findings suggest that the dynamics of informal mines are highly affected by the illegal mercury supply, fuel supply, and availability of workers. In addition, the model under the flood scenario suggests that any external variable that could directly affect fuel and mercury supply would result in a disruption of informal and illegal gold production. Full article

Institutional systems have a crucial impact on the development of biotechnology. In this article, we analyze the interaction between biotechnology and institutions. To conduct our analysis, we use the case study method and the stakeholder perspective. Our findings suggest the following: (1) Through the analysis of patent data, biotechnology has been developing very rapidly in recent years in China; (2) basic biotechnology institutions have been established, consisting of government, policy, and other institutional arrangements; (3) the interaction between the development of biotechnology and its existing institutions is dynamic; and (4) the interaction is affected by relative stakeholders. This study contributes to the theory concerning the governance of biotechnology, which is important in the sustainable development of biotechnology. Moreover, the article sheds light on policy implications. Full article

The speed value of 30 km/h should not be exceeded in urban areas, both to ensure safety requirements for all categories of users and to improve the overall quality of life in urban areas. Moreover, it is necessary not only to comply with the prescribed maximum speed, but also to ensure a uniform speed by limiting the variations in relation to the average value within an acceptable range of variation. An original analysis methodology is therefore proposed, useful for both technicians and administrators to verify the effectiveness of traffic calming measures, especially in areas where these measures are widely used, such as Zones 30. This methodology, called SPEIR (acronym for Speed Profile, Effectiveness Indicators and Results, which are the keywords of the three steps into which the proposed methodology is divided), is divided into three operational steps necessary to both verify the effectiveness of existing traffic calming measures in a given context and to plan new traffic calming measures to be implemented in specific urban sectors to be requalified and revitalized. Finally, three case studies are presented where the application of the SPEIR methodology is useful not only for understanding the operational steps in the application of the methodology itself, but also for understanding the differences in terms of the safety performance that the various traffic calming measures provide to the users of the urban streets where such measures are present. Full article