Search Results (1,313)

Environmental standards provide concrete, measurable benchmarks for policy, serving as the fundamental basis for effective formulation and implementation, and their uniform application is critical for advancing governance objectives while preventing inter-policy conflicts. From a sustainability perspective, the institutional process through which environmental standards are jointly developed is an important component of environmental governance, as it shapes the integration of knowledge and the coordination of regulatory responsibilities among participating organizations. Understanding the structural configuration of these collaborative relationships is therefore relevant to the design of more inclusive and coordinated arrangements for long-term environmental policy implementation. This study examines the formation mechanisms of inter-organizational collaborative networks in China’s environmental standard-setting process, focusing on differences in network structure across distinct periods. Focusing on the convening organizations (i.e., chief-editors), we try to answer two questions: What factors influence a convener’s choice of partner organizations? And how do the characteristics of participatory environmental standard-setting networks differ across various periods? To do so, this study empirically investigates the network using Exponential Random Graph Models (ERGM). The network transitioned from a simple, homogeneous configuration to a complex structure characterized by pronounced hierarchical and geographic homophily, a distinct core–periphery pattern, and prevalent reciprocal and clustering mechanisms. This evolutionary trajectory underscores the interplay between convener strategy and endogenous network dynamics. These findings provide empirical evidence for the study of policy network dynamics in China, offer new perspectives on theories of participatory governance, and have practical implications for policymakers seeking to design and manage effective collaborative systems for environmental governance. Full article

Reducing the harm caused by natural disasters requires an accurate, defensible assessment of where social vulnerability is concentrated. Existing social vulnerability studies rely predominantly on conventional statistical techniques, such as principal component analyses and simple additive indices, and rarely derive indicator weights and an overall ranking within a single, internally consistent decision framework. This study addresses that gap by proposing a hybrid multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) model that combines hierarchical data envelopment analysis (H-DEA) with the reference ideal method (RIM). H-DEA objectively derives the relative importance of four dimensions and twelve indicators of social vulnerability directly from the data, avoiding the subjectivity inherent in expert-elicited weights, while RIM ranks alternatives against a decision-maker-defined reference ideal range rather than an extreme value, thereby mitigating the rank-reversal problem associated with conventional distance-based methods. The model is applied to 161 townships and districts in Taiwan using government-sourced mitigation data covering exposure, mitigation and preparedness, response capacity and recovery. The results show that recovery capacity—in particular, local public finance and social support—contributes most to social vulnerability, followed by mitigation and preparedness. The townships and districts of highest vulnerabilities are heavily concentrated in Pingtung County. A comparison against H-DEA alone, TOPSIS and VIKOR, using Spearman’s rank correlation, confirms the stability of the proposed ranking, while a comparison against an unweighted average demonstrates the practical value of objective weighting. The findings offer local governments and disaster-management authorities an evidence-based basis for prioritizing mitigation investment. Full article

IP-themed rural tourism destinations combine commercial IP theming, rural settings, and family-oriented leisure, yet little is known about how tourists’ perceived experience conditions are associated with stated revisit intention in these hybrid contexts. Using Xiangtang·Yelin LINE FRIENDS Camping Village in Jiangsu, China, this study examines associations among scene affordance, gamification affordance, experiential coherence, narrative transportation, social interaction, emotional energy, and revisit intention. An on-site survey yielded 302 valid responses, which were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis. Scene affordance and experiential coherence were positively associated with both narrative transportation and social interaction. Gamification affordance was positively associated with social interaction and showed an inverted U-shaped association with narrative transportation. Narrative transportation was directly associated with revisit intention, while narrative transportation and social interaction were each associated with emotional energy, which was also associated with revisit intention. The configurational analysis identified six substantially overlapping solution terms for high revisit intention. These findings provide context-bound evidence regarding how scene affordance, gamification affordance, and experiential coherence operate when commercial IP theming is embedded in a rural leisure setting; they do not estimate the independent effect of IP theming. Full article

This study explored the relationship between safety leadership and project success in the construction industry, with a focus on the medium-sized Egyptian construction industry, and examined the mediating role of safety culture and the moderating role of team size. The research design was a cross-sectional survey, with 245 site engineers selected purposively. The data collection method used was a structured questionnaire. Data were analyzed using Hayes Process Macro (Model 4 and Model 1) with 5000 bootstrap resamples in SPSS to examine the mediation and moderation effects as hypothesized. The results show that safety leadership is positively related to both safety culture and project success. In addition, safety culture mediated the relationship between safety leadership and project success. Using the Johnson–Neyman technique, team size was found to moderate this relationship, with teams of fewer than 19 site engineers showing a greater moderation effect. These findings show that safety leadership and safety culture are crucial factors that increase key pillars of sustainable project delivery. This study offers practical recommendations for medium-sized construction firms to improve safety measures and team management, thereby enhancing safety and productivity. It also points out areas for future research, such as the moderating roles of other contextual factors on safety and project performance. Full article

Street vending plays an important role in supporting urban livelihoods and everyday consumption, while also posing challenges for inclusive urban governance. However, existing governance approaches often overlook the heterogeneity of street vendors and rely on standardized interventions. This study investigates vendor heterogeneity and its implications for inclusive governance based on questionnaire surveys conducted among street vendors in Suzhou, China. An integrated framework combining cluster analysis, multinomial logistic regression, multiple correspondence analysis, and structural equation modeling is developed to identify vendor profiles, explore their socio-economic associations, and examine satisfaction mechanisms. The results reveal substantial heterogeneity among street vendors. Four behavioral profiles are identified, namely High-Income Stable Vendors, Emerging Vendors, Low-Income Stable Vendors, and Long-Term Flexible Vendors, reflecting differences in operational stability, economic returns, and engagement patterns. Four preference-based profiles are further identified, including Low Demand Vendors, Rent-Support Oriented Vendors, Site-Environment Oriented Vendors, and Market-Order Oriented Vendors, demonstrating differentiated governance needs regarding operational support, physical conditions, and management arrangements. Further analyses demonstrate that vendor characteristics and socio-economic conditions are closely associated with profile membership, while physical and social environmental factors significantly influence business satisfaction. Moreover, the effects of environmental conditions on satisfaction differ across behavioral groups, indicating that vendors with different operational modes respond differently to urban environments and governance interventions. These findings suggest that street vendors should not be treated as a homogeneous group in the pursuit of socially sustainable urban development. Instead, inclusive governance requires differentiated strategies that align spatial support, management arrangements, and policy interventions with the diverse needs of vendor groups. This study contributes to sustainable urban governance by highlighting the importance of incorporating livelihood diversity into the planning and management of informal economic activities. Full article

Coordinated regional development of agricultural and rural modernization is essential to remedy sectoral shortcomings and to advance comprehensive rural revitalization. Panel data from 16 cities in Shandong Province (2014–2023) were analyzed using GMI and LMI models to study spatio-temporal evolution and spatial correlation in three economic circles. The Dagum coefficient decomposed regional disparities, while an obstacle degree model identified key hindering factors. The findings were as follows. Agricultural and rural modernization in Shandong has followed a fluctuating but rapid growth trajectory, with a clear spatial hierarchy: Jiaodong > Lunan > Provincial Capital. Spatial agglomeration types HH and LL occurred mainly in Jiaodong and Lunan, respectively. By contrast, spatial outliers of type HL included Dezhou, Jinan and Jining, while LH characterized Rizhao and Dongying. Overall discrepancies in agricultural and rural modernization within the province arose mainly from differences between these economic circles and, on the whole, were converging. Although Provincial Capital has experienced episodic widening of intra-circle disparities, differences within Jiaodong and Lunan have tended to narrow. Persistent constraints on agricultural and rural modernization in Shandong Province included comprehensive control level of soil and water loss, governance expenditure on rural communities, industrialization level of agricultural products, and Agro-product Geographical Indications, while the comprehensive control level of soil and water loss was also the common obstacle factors across three major economic circles, and industrialization level of agricultural products became common to all three from 2020 onward. Each circle should exploit its particular resource endowment and development base. To narrow development gaps among prefecture-level cities, it is essential to clarify functional roles, strengthen inter-city division of labor and cooperation, and promote coordinated regional development of agricultural and rural modernization across the economic circles. Full article

China’s Carbon Emissions Trading (CET) Pilot Policy may alter corporate information environments and demand for auditors with industry-specific experience. Using the staggered launch of regional carbon markets as a quasi-natural experiment, this study examines whether policy exposure changes auditor industry specialization among Chinese A-share listed firms from 2010 to 2022. Specialization is measured by the logged share of an auditor’s client assets in a given industry; it does not represent an audit-fee premium or direct carbon-assurance expertise. Staggered difference-in-differences estimates show that CET pilot exposure increases this specialization measure. The result is robust to event-study, placebo, propensity-score-matched, and Callaway–Sant’Anna specifications. Channel regressions are consistent with financing-constraint and leverage pathways, while evidence for controlling-shareholder fund occupation is weak and not interpreted as causal mediation. Pairwise tests identify regional differences but no statistically significant ownership or pollution-intensity differences. By linking carbon-market policy to auditor-client matching, the study shows that sustainability policy can reshape the professional-service infrastructure supporting firms’ low-carbon transition. Allocating industry-experienced auditors to policy-exposed firms may strengthen the credibility and comparability of sustainability-related financial information and support regulatory monitoring. These implications concern the institutional capacity for sustainable development; the study does not directly measure sustainability performance or carbon-assurance quality. Full article

Using Portuguese Food Balance Sheet data for 1990–2024, this study examines whether Mediterranean-classified food availability is associated with an annualised per-capita weighted food-related carbon-pressure proxy (WFCPP). A dynamic HAC–Newey–West model (1998–2024; 27 observations) separates dietary composition from analytical total caloric availability through orthogonalisation, while an exploratory ARDL–UECM assesses conditional level relationships. Because the WFCPP, Mediterranean dietary component, and caloric-availability control share food-group series, orthogonalisation reparameterises rather than removes their structural dependence. The baseline Mediterranean coefficient is negative (β = −0.467; p = 0.018) but becomes insignificant under HC3 inference, exclusion of 2012–2013, the Mediterranean Adequacy Index, and the per-calorie WFCPI; all block-bootstrap 95% intervals contain zero. In the selected ARDL, Mediterranean coefficients are insignificant in both the short and long run. Accordingly, H1 is not robustly supported, and H2 is unsupported; no robust Mediterranean-specific negative association is confirmed at either horizon. The analysis concerns apparent food availability and fixed dimensionless weights, not actual consumption, causal effects, or physical greenhouse-gas emissions. Full article

Digital infrastructure (DI) plays a dual role in the low-carbon transition. It supports economic operation but also consumes substantial energy. This study explores DI’s impact on carbon emission efficiency (CEE) using data on 41 cities in China’s Yangtze River Delta from 2011 to 2024. The methods used in this study include a two-way fixed effects model, mediation analysis, a panel threshold model, and a spatial Durbin model. The results show that the impact of DI on CEE is U-shaped. Industrial upgrading and technological innovation are the potential channels through which DI affects CEE. Energy efficiency has a single threshold value of 8.533. DI enhances CEE when energy efficiency exceeds this threshold. Spatial analysis indicates that both the direct and indirect effects of DI follow a U-shaped pattern. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the environmental impact of DI varies depending on resource endowments, policy environments, and economic development levels. This study provides insights for global urban agglomerations to balance digital transformation and sustainable development. Full article

Heavy metal deposition along high-traffic roadsides poses a persistent threat to agricultural safety, yet the partition barrier efficiency across rhizosphere–root–shoot interfaces in perennial nut crops remains poorly understood, representing a significant research gap. This study determined the concentrations of potentially toxic elements in the rhizosphere soils and distinct organs (leaves, pericarp, and edible seeds) of Siirt pistachio trees along a distance gradient (0, 50, and 100 m, plus a control site) in the Siirt and Tillo districts. To filter analytical baseline noise, all raw datasets were subjected to strict solid-matrix limit of detection (LOD) screening using a standardized dilution factor of 30 mL/g (DF = 15 mL final volume/0.5 g sample mass). Soil analysis revealed that the alkaline pH (6.90–7.27) and highly calcareous nature (21.97–65.75%) of the rhizosphere acted as a powerful edaphic barrier, immobilizing metals in the soil and limiting their translocation to aboveground tissues. Plant accumulation followed a leaf > pericarp > seed hierarchy, proving the canopy’s role as an effective vegetative filter. Crucially for food safety, highly toxic Cd (<1.74 µg/kg) and Bi remained entirely below detection limits in edible seeds. Cr peaked in leaves (730.42–795.00 µg/kg) but was highly restricted in seeds. Detected kernel concentrations of As, Co, Ni, Pb, and Sb were strictly below international toxic thresholds, while essential Cu physiologically concentrated in seeds and leaves. Consequently, the cumulative Hazard Index (HI) remained exceptionally below the 1.0 critical safety limit for both adults (<0.18) and children (<0.32). This confirms that roadside pistachios pose zero non-carcinogenic health hazards and are completely safe for human consumption. Full article

Digital fandom has moved beyond entertainment into sports and entrepreneurial contexts, but the network forms of these communities remain unclear. This study compares nine anonymized Weibo repost networks across entrepreneurial, sports, and entertainment domains. It uses a shared role framework and a common set of social network indicators, with analysis drawn on 22,727 standardized repost records. Across domains, the networks showed low reciprocity, high flow hierarchy, and many peripheral participants. Domain-level patterns also differed. Entrepreneurial fandom showed a hub-mediated, broadcast-like pattern. Sports fandom most closely resembled a hierarchical core–periphery or broadcast-like structure. Entertainment fandom showed a intermediary-centered hierarchical broadcast pattern. The study offers a comparative network view of sustainable online engagement. Full article

The assessment of sustainable ecological carrying capacity (SECC) serves as a crucial scientific foundation for supporting high-quality urbanization, advancing ecological civilization, and achieving the strategic goals of the “Dual Carbon” initiative. However, existing assessment methods largely rely on subjective expert scoring, making them difficult to apply at the large-scale urban level; simultaneously, traditional fuzzy assessment frameworks lack effective mechanisms for representing uncertainty when dealing with objective panel data. This paper proposes a temporal-uncertainty-driven interval-valued Fermatean fuzzy set (TU-IVFFS) theoretical framework and integrates it with an improved decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL), the method based on the removal effects of criteria (MEREC), and the measurement of alternatives and ranking according to compromise solution (MARCOS) approach to construct an integrated urban ecological carrying capacity assessment framework: TU-IVFF-DEMATEL-MEREC-MARCOS. Using panel data from 2021 to 2024 for 690 major Chinese cities (at the county-level-city level and above) as the sample, the analysis found that Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Nanjing, and Chongqing ranked in the top five for SECC, while some small cities in the northeast and northwest ranked lower. Sensitivity analysis showed that the city rankings remained stable across the entire range of weight combination coefficients λ ∈ [0, 1], verifying the robustness of the proposed framework. This study provides a methodological breakthrough for the reproducible and generalizable assessment of urban ecological carrying capacity in large-scale samples. Full article

Environmental noise is a major environmental and public health concern in rapidly urbanizing cities, yet integrated studies combining field measurements, GIS-based spatial analysis, and predictive modelling remain limited in Central Asia. This study assessed the spatial distribution of urban noise pollution in Samarkand (Uzbekistan) and explored its statistical association with selected public health indicators, forecasting future trends. Measurements were conducted at 50 georeferenced sites covering more than 300 streets. The measured data were processed and mapped using ArcGIS 10.5 (Esri, Redlands, CA, USA) to produce the spatial distribution of environmental noise across the study area. Official data on registered vehicles, industrial enterprises, and disease incidence (2014–2024) were analysed using Pearson correlation, Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA), and its extension incorporating exogenous variables (ARIMAX) models. Results revealed pronounced spatial heterogeneity in noise levels, highest along transport corridors and industrial zones. Industrial enterprises showed the strongest correlations with disease incidence; vehicle registrations were excluded from final models owing to collinearity with industrial activity. ARIMA projected continued industrial growth through 2030, while ARIMAX models identified significant associations between industrial activity and diseases of the ear and mastoid process and of the nervous system (MAPE 28.55% and 19.78%). As an ecological, exploratory study using infrastructural proxies rather than measured noise exposure, findings should be interpreted as associations rather than causation. The framework offers a transferable approach for environmental risk assessment and sustainable urban planning. Full article

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) metrics are increasingly used to assess corporate sustainability performance, yet their reliance on public disclosure raises questions about whether they capture actual organizational implementation. This study examines the alignment between externally reported ESG–Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) performance and internal perceptions in Kazakhstan, an emerging market characterized by uneven disclosure norms, institutional enforcement, and sectoral exposure. The analysis combines disclosure-based ESGQ scores with original survey data; matched comparisons between the two resulted in 52 responses from 25 firms. Using linear mixed models and principal component analysis, the study identifies a systematic disclosure–perception gap, in which internal perceptions exceed external disclosure-based scores in the governance and SDG dimensions, where standards are least codified and hardest to verify. Additionally, industry membership is more consistently associated with this disclosure–perception gap than ownership structure or firm size. The findings suggest that ESG measurement gaps in emerging markets are not reducible to greenwashing; instead, disclosure-based evaluation systems may under-represent practices that organizational insiders perceive as embedded, although positive response bias among respondents cannot be ruled out. The results support the idea that future research should complement disclosure-based ESG assessment with internal organizational evidence. Full article

Oyster aquaculture plays a critical role in coastal social-ecological systems by providing ecosystem services such as economic benefits, food security, and environmental regulation; however, multiple biophysical and socio-economic stressors threaten its long-term sustainability. This study operationalizes the seven established resilience principles to identify strategies that enhance the resilience of oyster aquaculture globally. A scoping review following PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines was conducted across Scopus, Web of Science, and JSTOR, yielding 345 peer-reviewed publications (2000–2026) from which 13 stressor categories and 15 mitigation strategy categories were identified. Diseases and pathogens constituted the most documented stressor (24.3%), followed by climate change and ocean acidification (9.9%). Among strategies, the governance, policy, and stakeholder engagement strategy was the most frequently used (12.8%). Classification by resilience principles revealed that managing slow variables and feedback (P3, 30.1%) and maintaining diversity and redundancy (P1, 22.6%) dominated the literature, while broadening participation (P6, 11.0%) and promoting polycentric governance (P7, 4.6%) were least represented, revealing a significant gap in the scientific literature between biophysical and socio-institutional research attention. Context-specific indicators were developed for each principle, providing a replicable framework linking stressors, strategies, and resilience principles applicable to diverse mariculture systems. Full article