Springer Science and Business Media LLC

With the continuous uptick in world energy consumption, green energy plays an increasingly significant role in alleviating energy depletion and promoting economic development. Due to regional differences, transportation restrictions, national policies and other reasons, there is a mismatch between green energy needs and resources across regions in China, which leads to misallocation of capital and labor between heavily polluting and nonpolluting enterprises. In this context, this paper first proposes a new measurement method: namely, the capital and labor mismatch index. Panel data of 30 Chinese provinces from 2008 to 2018 are utilized to calculate the index. The results show significant resource mismatch across provinces in China. In addition, we extend the green Solow model by combining capital mismatch, technological progress and environmental regulation into a dynamic analysis framework of economic growth. The empirical results show that all three factors have significant spatial spillover effects. Specifically, capital misallocation exerts a strong negative impact on economic growth, while the other factors increase it.

By developing markets and increasing world competition, today, companies' success is not only related to their performance but also the interaction and performance of their entire supply chain and distribution. In the supply chain strategy, operational functions, such as planning, purchasing, and financial affairs are considered all together. In the meantime, the coordination between manufacturers, distributors, and retailers is of great importance. Coordination through cooperation between distribution channels is necessary because of their potential for realizing significant profits. This study presents a mathematical model for a three-echelon supply chain. In this model, the effect of the strategy of returning goods on the amount of profit as well as on the optimal amount of wholesale-retail prices is determined. The three-echelon supply chain is represented by manufacturers, distributors, and retailers. In this study, social responsibility is considered in the model and channel coordination in this three-echelon supply chain is also considered. Hence, in addition to maximizing total profit, social responsibility is also taken into consideration. Channel coordination and optimization of the supply chain are considered in both centralized and decentralized modes. In the results, it was found that the quality of products in a consistent manner is always at a higher level than in a decentralized state. Also, it was found that if decisions are made on a coordinated basis, customers who return their goods will benefit from higher earnings than decentralized. Therefore, this model helps the firms to find out the structure, which has a better performance in terms of product quality, return policy, and social responsibility impact while reducing conflict between supply chain members. Also, through a coordinated system, firms can enhance the quality of products and return policy, which in turn improves customer satisfaction and profits.

The main polluting agents of the environment are different anthropogenic activities; among them, industries are the primary one. Lead (Pb2+) is an extremely toxic metal ion and is the main raw material of lead–acid batteries. The present study focuses on adsorptive removal of lead from battery manufacturing industrial effluent by sweet lemon (Citrus limetta) peel biochar (SLPB). The removal efficiency was about 97.11% at optimum contact time of 160 min with optimum dosage of 3.5 g L−1 at constant temperature. The optimum pH and temperature were recorded to be 5 and 55 ºC with their maximum adsorption capacities of 55.67 and 53.89 mg g−1, respectively. The process obeyed second-order kinetics favoring chemisorption over physisorption. The adsorbent was also characterized by SEM–EDX, XRD, BET and FTIR to validate the results obtained. The results were justified by the functional groups present and changes in morphology of the biochar after treating wastewater. Further, adsorption process preferred Freundlich (r2 = 0.98) adsorption isotherm in comparison with Langmuir (r2 = 0.95) adsorption isotherm. The adsorption process demonstrated that the removal process was multilayered and heterogeneous with maximum adsorption capacity (qmax) of 2840.91 mg g−1 which was higher than most of the values obtained from other materials. Thus, the study concluded that SLPB might be used to overcome the pollution level of metals in our water bodies to maintain the quality of water bodies.

This study examines India’s sustainable development with respect to economic and environment development. India is among the largest emerging countries with good economic development prospects. Nevertheless, its environmental development is poor coupled with its position as third in global carbon emission ranking. This peculiarity of Indian economy with increasing emissions has prompted the need for this research into the country’s sustainability. Considering the leading role of government in curbing the environmental problems, this study aims to ascertain the India’s sustainable development by investigating the role of institutional quality in mitigating its carbon emissions. India’s data of 1996Q1 2018Q4 are utilized to investigate the country’s sustainable development. Short-run and long-run autoregressive distribution lag (ARDL) dynamic and bound test for cointegration with Granger causality are adopted in this study for better insight on India’s sustainable development. Findings from ARDL revealed positive impact of Institutions on environment quality through reduction in carbon emission; however, effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) and fossil fuels shows negative effect on India’s environment through increase in carbon emissions. Findings from Granger causality exposed direction of impacts among the variables; hence, nexus is formed among the variables in determining the cause of carbon emissions and environmental damage. The findings from Granger causality give support to the findings from the ARDL analysis pointing towards the need to frame policies capable of mitigating carbon emission and enhances energy transition through institutions.

Landslide is the most dangerous natural hazard in mountainous regions. Disasters due to landslides annually result in human casualties, destroyed property, and monetary damages. Landslide susceptibility maps, highlighting landslide-prone areas, can provide useful spatial information for risk management and mitigation. These maps are required to be updated continuously because of the complexity of the landslide formation and movement processes. This underlines the need to develop and use cutting-edge machine learning algorithms to produce more landslide predictive maps. The study aimed to compare the predictive performance of advanced gradient boosting algorithms for modeling landslide susceptibility, including Gradient Boosting (GB), Light Gradient Boosting Machine (LightGBM), Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), Categorical Boosting (CB), and Natural Gradient Boosting (NGBoost). Fifteen landslide influencing factors were collected and selected based on the relationship between historical landslide locations and local geo-environmental characteristics. The statistical parameters were used to compare and verify the models’ predictive performance. All proposed models have excellent forecast performances, of which the CB model has the best forecast performance (AUC = 0.921), followed by the GB model (AUC = 0.915), the LightGBM model (AUC = 0.911), the NGBoost (AUC = 0.900), and the XGBoost model (AUC = 0.897). Landslide susceptibility maps created by the CB model are recommended for the Bac Kan province in Vietnam after being validated with current landslide events recorded by the Vietnam Disasters Monitoring System. There is potential for gradient boosting models and landslide susceptibility maps to improve disaster management activities in hilly regions.

The ubiquitous presence of contaminants like pesticides in the various environmental matrices has become a concern for environmental sustainability and global stability. Pesticides are a distinctive class of environmental contaminants that are specifically introduced into the environment to kill or inhibit pests attacking the different crops. Although pesticide application is beneficial to crop production by serving several significant purposes, like protection against vector-borne diseases and crop loss, there are substantial concerns as they have a persistent nature and can possess serious consequences because of harmful effects to non-targeted beings comprising humans also. Pesticide consumption has reached 4.1 million tonnes/year in 2017 almost 81% from 1990. Recent data suggest pesticides account for 14–20% of global suicides from 2006 to 2015 resulting in 111,000–168,000 deaths annually from 2010 to 2014. About 14 million people have died from suicide by consuming pesticides since the beginning of the Green revolution. About 1 million accidental pesticide poisoning occur each year causing 20,000 fatalities approximately. For this reason, the occurrence of pesticides in different mediums like crop, air, water resources, fruits and vegetables, soil, plants, birds, animal products, and human beings was reviewed. This paper presents an overview of pesticides occurrence, distribution, extraction method, analytical techniques for their detection. This review will assist policymakers to enforce guidelines to restrict the redundant use of pesticides.

The Filipino agricultural sector is exposed to multiple climatic, economic, and social risks that will likely intensify in the near future. Building agroecological resilience has been proposed to protect small-scale farmers’ livelihoods and improve food security in the context of (unexpected) shocks and disruptions, and slow system changes such as climate change. This paper argues that commons-based seed production, based on collective management and ownership of seeds and varieties, can play a central role in building resilience capacities in smallholder communities. I explore this by applying an indicator-based framework to assess the contribution of the Filipino farmer network Magsasaka at Siyentipiko para sa Pag-unlad ng Agrikultura (MASIPAG) to agroecological resilience. I find that the networks’ commons-based seed governance builds agroecological resilience in various ways. By equipping small-scale farmers with the tools to regain control over seed production and breeding, they become stewards of an actively evolving collection of varieties. The in situ maintenance and development of traditional, open-pollinated varieties and a network of diversified trial and backup farms build up buffering capacities and foster agrobiodiversity and local adaptation. A focus on regionally available natural resources reduces vulnerabilities to external factors. Adaptive capacities are strengthened through a high degree of flexibility and responsiveness achieved by self-organization and polycentric organizational structures. Broad participation, shared learning and spaces for experimentation support the development of farmers’ capacities to respond to diverse challenges. Commons-based approaches to seed governance can thus strengthen agroecological resilience and long-term food security in smallholder agricultural systems.

This article attempts to explore the nexus between rural households’ environmental dependency, poverty and livelihood strategies. Households’ income from each livelihood activities formed the basis for categorizing households according to livelihood strategies. The principal component analysis, agglomerative hierarchical and the k-means cluster analysis were employed to determine the four livelihood clusters and to assign households to the identified livelihood strategies. Households’ environmental dependency, poverty and asset holding were compared across the strategies, and the determinants of livelihood choice were analyzed using multinomial logit model. The results indicate the existence of marked differences in environmental dependency, rural poverty and asset endowments across the livelihood groups. Household’s total saving, access to credit, production implements, business cost, exposure to agricultural shock determined household’s access to a more remunerative livelihood strategy. Incomes from each livelihood activities for the identified livelihood strategies were analyzed, and their implications were also discussed.

Beliefs form the fabric of every society. Likewise, there are socio-cultural beliefs that people hold as causes of climate risk. This paper sought to identify the socio-cultural beliefs on drought among crop farmers in Talensi, Ghana and how these provide insights for environmental management, social vulnerability, early warning systems and coping and adaptation. The selection of Talensi District was appropriate because it is one of the agrarian districts located in drought prone zone of Ghana. The study was designed following the case study approach. A total of 69 participants were selected through purposive sampling to participate in key informant interviews and focus group discussions conducted across nine (9) communities. The study found that manifestation of bad and/or indecent behavioural practices; performance and/or non-performance of traditional rites; presence and behaviour peculiar animals; and magical conjurations and incantations by spiritualists, diviners and soothsayers were the significant socio-cultural beliefs accounting for drought. The study concludes that the socio-cultural beliefs of the local people are their social-cultural capital and this asset is a useful gamut in explaining the social vulnerability; development of early warning drought systems; and selection of coping and adaptation strategies in Talensi District. A major recommendation is that individuals and institutions with expertise in technical and scientific early warning drought information should be circumspect in not adopting a judgmental approach when they are communicating and disseminating risk information, to the detriment of indigenous knowledge.