Search Results (86)

This study presents the development and implementation of an integrated survey system designed to evaluate the impact of MaaS in the context of Cairo’s rapidly evolving urban landscape. The research employs a dual-survey methodology, combining an RP household travel survey with an innovative, context-aware SP experiment focused on MaaS. The system is tailored to address the complexities of Cairo’s formal and informal transport networks and the transformative potential of new public transit infrastructure associated with Cairo’s urban expansion and the introduction of the New Administrative Capital. The paper outlines the methodological framework, including the design of the survey instruments, drawing upon established guidelines and the integration of real-world transportation data for realistic scenario generation in the SP component. While this paper primarily focuses on the development of the survey system and its design principles, it also incorporates some preliminary findings from a 313-participant full-scale survey to illustrate the potential of this comprehensive approach for understanding current travel behaviour, socio-demographic determinants of mobility, and the prospects of context-aware SP data to assess user preferences for potential MaaS offerings. Results highlight the methodological advances in survey design for developing cities and aim to offer policy-relevant evidence for sustainable mobility interventions. Full article

In the current context of the international climate agenda, understanding both the sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the mechanisms for their mitigation is a fundamental requirement for low-carbon development strategies. Kazakhstan has pledged to reduce its GHG emissions by 15–25% by 2030, relative to 1990 levels, and to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. However, there is no unified methodology for comprehensively assessing the national carbon balance, particularly at the regional scale. This study addresses this gap by analyzing GHG emissions and carbon sequestration capacities across Kazakhstan’s regions using a sectoral disaggregation approach and scenario-based modeling aligned with IPCC methods. Emission hotspots were identified in the energy sector (328 MtCO₂-eq), agriculture (118 MtCO₂-eq—primarily from pasturelands), and transport (7 MtCO₂-eq). In contrast, current carbon sinks—mainly forest ecosystems and abandoned pasturelands—account for only 3.97 and 13.9 MtCO₂-eq, respectively. The research evaluates the technical potential for emissions reduction through the best available technologies (BAT), livestock management, partial transition to gas-powered vehicles, and reforestation. A geoengineering scenario combining all measures suggests that Kazakhstan could meet its 2030 climate targets, although full carbon neutrality by 2060 would remain out of reach under current policy trajectories. The Akmola region is examined as a representative case study, demonstrating a possible 35% reduction in net emissions by 2035. This work contributes a regionally nuanced, data-driven framework for integrating ecosystem services into national climate policy and identifies nature-based solutions—especially forest management—as essential components of Kazakhstan’s decarbonization pathway, offering insights for other carbon-intensive economies. Full article

This study examines the digital maturity of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the context of Industry 4.0. Despite growing awareness of the importance of digital transformation, many SMEs encounter structural and strategic challenges that impede their progress. Among their obstacles is the inadequacy of digital maturity models used to diagnose digital maturity levels in SMEs due to their typological, sectoral, geographical, and other specific characteristics. Using a constructivist and qualitative approach, we have developed a simplified, inclusive, and holistic assessment framework comprising six key dimensions (technology, culture, organization, people and human resources, strategic planning), associated with six progressive maturity levels. Our findings reveal that most SMEs studied in 2023 exhibit a beginner level of digital maturity. These enterprises are characterized by small-scale digital initiatives, often lacking a clear strategy, with limited or partial digitization of processes and heterogeneous technology adoption. The resulting self-assessment tool provides SMEs with practical guidance to launch, evaluate, and accelerate their digital transformation. This study contributes theoretically by proposing a practical digital maturity model and offering a tool to support SMEs and public policy. It highlights the need for tailored support, strategic alignment, and continuous training to unlock the full potential of Industry 4.0 in less urbanized and resource-constrained areas. Full article

The unsuitable performance of or deficit in basic sanitation infrastructure, especially in sparsely populated rural communities, remains critical, particularly in many developing regions, and demands sustainable, cost-effective, and easily operated solutions. Thus, the objective of this Review is to analyze design parameters for evapotranspiration tanks (EvapTs), adopted as nature-based solutions for zero-discharge domestic sewage treatment. The literature search was conducted using the Scopus and Web of Science databases, complemented by backward citation tracking. From 4434 records, 29 studies were selected based on specific criteria, such as the availability of design data and their application in urban or rural contexts. The main findings indicated required areas per inhabitant ranging from 0.5 to 7.7 m², primarily influenced by climate conditions and the type of plant used. Statistical analysis showed a negative correlation between the area of the evaporation tanks and the mean annual temperature, with a Pearson correlation coefficient (r of −0.74). For mean annual temperatures between 19 and 27 degrees Celsius, linear regression showed a variation between 4.7 and 0.6 m²/inhabitant with a reduction coefficient of −0.51 per degree Celsius, suggesting that warmer climates require smaller system areas per capita. Most studies were conducted at full scale, with Brazil accounting for the highest number of publications. EvapT is identified as a promising ecological technology that is particularly suitable for rural settings. However, it still requires technical standardization, cost–benefit analysis, and research on social acceptance. The adoption of clear design criteria may enhance system replicability, support public policy development, and contribute to SDG 6—Clean Water and Sanitation for All. Full article

Healthcare systems worldwide face growing challenges related to staff shortages, excessive workload, and deteriorating working conditions, which compromise both staff well-being and care quality. Despite these issues, there is a lack of validated tools that capture healthcare professionals’ subjective perceptions of resource adequacy. This study presents the development and initial validation of the Staff Resource Adequacy Questionnaire for Healthcare Professionals (SRAQ-HP), a multidimensional tool designed to assess staffing adequacy and workload, quality of care, and working conditions and support. The development process followed a mixed-methods design, incorporating theoretical foundations from Kanter’s empowerment theory, role enactment models, and professional competence frameworks. The initial item pool of 32 statements was reduced to 26 through expert reviews, focus groups, and pilot testing (n = 35). Content validity index (CVI = 0.931) and face validity index (FVI = 0.976) demonstrated high content relevance and clarity. Cronbach’s alpha for the full scale was 0.841, confirming internal consistency. Expert re-review confirmed strong content (S-CVI/Ave = 0.931) and face validity (FVI = 0.976) for the final 26-item version. Three core dimensions were retained: Staffing Adequacy and Workload, Quality of Care, and Working Conditions and Support. The SRAQ-HP provides a novel, evidence-based approach to systematically assess workforce sufficiency and support structures in clinical settings. It can guide decision-making in healthcare institutions and inform national workforce policies. Further research with larger and more diverse samples is needed to confirm its factorial validity and practical applicability. Full article

The transition towards a low-carbon energy system remains a critical challenge for regions heavily dependent on fossil fuels, such as Andalusia. This study proposes an energy planning framework based on the Low Emissions Analysis Platform (LEAP) to model alternative scenarios and assess the feasibility of meeting the 2030 and 2050 decarbonisation targets. Three scenarios are evaluated, the Tendential Scenario (TS01), the Efficient Scenario (ES01), and the Efficient UJA (EEUJA) Scenario, with this last being specifically designed to ensure full compliance with regional energy goals. The results indicate that, while the Tendential Scenario falls short in reducing primary energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the Efficient Scenario achieves significant progress, though it is still insufficient to meet renewable energy integration targets. The proposed EEUJA Scenario introduces more ambitious measures, including large-scale electrification, smart grids, energy storage, and green hydrogen deployment, resulting in a 39.5% reduction in primary energy demand by 2030 and 97% renewable energy penetration by 2050. Furthermore, by implementing sector-specific decarbonisation strategies for the industry, transport, residential, and services sectors, Andalusia could position itself as a frontrunner in the energy transition while minimising economic and environmental risks. These findings underscore the importance of policy enforcement, technological innovation, and financial incentives in securing a sustainable energy future. The methodology developed in this study is replicable for other regions aiming for carbon neutrality and energy resilience through strategic planning and scenario analysis. Full article

Green hydrogen is gaining global attention as a zero-carbon energy carrier with the potential to drive sustainable energy transitions, particularly in regions facing rising fossil fuel costs and resource depletion. In sub-Saharan Africa, financing mechanisms and structured off-take agreements are critical to attracting investment across the green hydrogen value chain, from advisory and pilot stages to full-scale deployment. While substantial funding is required to support a green economic transition, success will depend on the effective mobilization of capital through smart public policies and innovative financial instruments. This review evaluates financing mechanisms relevant to sub-Saharan Africa, including green bonds, public–private partnerships, foreign direct investment, venture capital, grants and loans, multilateral and bilateral funding, and government subsidies. Despite their potential, current capital flows remain insufficient and must be significantly scaled up to meet green energy transition targets. This study employs a mixed-methods approach, drawing on primary data from utility firms under the H₂Atlas-Africa project and secondary data from international organizations and the peer-reviewed literature. The analysis identifies that transitioning toward Net-Zero emissions economies through hydrogen development in sub-Saharan Africa presents both significant opportunities and measurable risks. Specifically, the results indicate an estimated investment risk factor of 35%, reflecting potential challenges such as financing, infrastructure, and policy readiness. Nevertheless, the findings underscore that green hydrogen is a viable alternative to fossil fuels in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly if supported by targeted financing strategies and robust policy frameworks. This study offers practical insights for policymakers, financial institutions, and development partners seeking to structure bankable projects and accelerate green hydrogen adoption across the region. Full article

Sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) are currently considered a key element in the decarbonization of the aviation sector, offering a feasible solution to reduce life cycle greenhouse gas emissions without requiring fundamental changes in aircraft or infrastructure. This article provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of SAFs, including their classification, production technologies, economic aspects, and environmental performance. The analysis covers both currently certified SAF pathways, such as HEFA and FT-SPK, and emerging technologies like alcohol-to-jet and power-to-liquid, assessing their technological maturity, feedstock availability, and scalability. Economic challenges related to high production costs, investment risks, and policy dependencies are discussed, alongside potential mechanisms to support market deployment. Furthermore, the article reviews SAFs’ emission performance, including CO₂ and non-CO₂ effects, based on existing life cycle assessment (LCA) studies, with an emphasis on variability caused by feedstock type and production method. The findings highlight that, while SAFs can significantly reduce aviation-related emissions compared to fossil jet fuels, the magnitude of benefits depends strongly on supply chain design and sustainability criteria. There are various certified pathways for SAF production, as well as new technologies that can further contribute to the development of the industry. Properly selected biomass sources and production technologies can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 70% compared to conventional fuels. The implementation of SAFs faces obstacles related to cost, infrastructure, and regulations, which hinder its widespread adoption. The study concludes that although SAFs represent a promising pathway for aviation climate mitigation, substantial scaling efforts, regulatory support, and continued technological innovation are essential to achieve their full potential. Full article

Remotely sensed cropland abandonment monitoring is crucial for providing spatially explicit references for maintaining sustainable agricultural practices and ensuring food security. However, abandoned cropland is commonly detected based on multi-date classification or the dynamics of a single vegetation index, with the interactions between vegetation and soil time series often being neglected, leading to a failure to understand its full-life-cycle succession processes. To fill this gap, we propose a new full-life-cycle modeling framework based on the interactive trajectories of vegetation–soil-related endmembers to identify abandoned and reclaimed cropland in Jinan from 2000 to 2022. In this framework, highly accurate annual fractional vegetation- and soil-related endmember time series are generated for Jinan City for the 2000–2022 period using spectral mixture models. These are then used to integrally reconstruct temporal trajectories for complex scenarios (e.g., abandonment, weed invasion, reclamation, and fallow) using logistic and double-logistic models. The parameters of the optimization model (fitting type, change magnitude, start timing, and change duration) are subsequently integrated to develop a rule-based hierarchical identification scheme for cropland abandonment based on these complex scenarios. After applying this scheme, we observed a significant decline in green vegetation (a slope of −0.40% per year) and an increase in the soil fraction (a rate of 0.53% per year). These pathways are mostly linked to a duration between 8 and 15 years, with the beginning of the change trend around 2010. Finally, the results show that our framework can effectively separate abandoned cropland from reclamation dynamics and other classes with satisfactory precision, as indicated by an overall accuracy of 86.02%. Compared to the traditional yearly land cover-based approach (with an overall accuracy of 77.39%), this algorithm can overcome the propagation of classification errors (with product accuracy from 74.47% to 85.11%), especially in terms of improving the ability to capture changes at finer spatial scales. Furthermore, it also provides a better understanding of the whole abandonment process under the influence of multi-factor interactions in the context of specific climatic backgrounds and human disturbances, thus helping to inform adaptive abandonment management and sustainable agricultural policies. Full article

As a major contributor to global energy consumption and carbon emissions, the building sector plays a pivotal role in achieving carbon peaking and neutrality targets. This study systematically reviews the evolution of research on building stock energy conservation and emission reduction (BSECER) from 1992 to 2025, which is based on a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of 2643 publications. The analysis highlights the research contributions of countries, institutions, and scholars in the BSECER field, reveals patterns in collaborative networks, and identifies the development and shifting focus of research topics over time. The findings indicate that current BSECER research centers around four main areas: behavioral efficiency optimization, full life cycle carbon management, urban system transformation, and the integration of intelligent technologies, which collectively form a multiscale emission reduction framework from individual behavior to large-scale systems. Building on these insights, this study outlines five key future research directions: advancing comprehensive carbon neutrality technologies, accelerating the engineering application of intelligent technologies, developing innovative multi-scenario policy simulation tools, overcoming integration challenges in renewable energy systems, and establishing an interdisciplinary platform that links health, behavior, and energy conservation. Full article

Background: Food waste is a significant global issue with environmental, social, and economic consequences. In 2022, approximately 1.05 billion tons of food were wasted worldwide, with 220 million tons lost during the production and processing stages. Strategies to reduce food waste include full food utilization and the reuse of clean leftovers, which promote food security, efficient resource use, and the valorization of nutrients found in food. Objective: The aim of this study was to map existing scientific literature on nutritional intervention programs that incorporate full food utilization and the reuse of clean leftovers as tools for promoting sustainability and reducing food waste. The review seeks to consolidate existing knowledge, support public policy development, and encourage the adoption of sustainable food practices. Methods: A scoping review was conducted based on the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) manual and following the PRISMA-ScR checklist. The search was conducted in four scientific databases (PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, and Virtual Health Library) and included articles published between 2014 and 2025. Intervention studies promoting full utilization of plant-based foods and the reuse of clean leftovers were included. Results: After analyzing 2268 studies, 14 relevant studies were selected, with interventions including culinary workshops and educational programs on using parts of food typically discarded, such as peels and seeds. These programs were successful in reducing waste and promoting more sustainable and nutritious diets. Conclusions: Nutritional intervention programs that promote full food utilization and clean leftover reuse are effective in reducing waste and fostering sustainable diets. To maximize their impact, these practices should be integrated into public policies and scaled in institutional settings such as schools, hospitals, and community kitchens. Full article

The development of the building sector to the use of renewable energy, more so in photovoltaic (PV) systems, is a great step toward enhanced environmental sustainability and improved energy efficiency. This study seeks to determine the economic, environmental, and operational effects of integrating a PV system into a Polish production plant for buildings. Case study methodology was followed with the help of actual operating histories and simulation modeling to present the estimates of carbon emission savings, cost savings, and power efficiency. Key findings illustrate that 31.8% of the business’s full-year supply of electricity is through the utilization of solar energy and that it saves as much as 10,366 kg CO₂ of emissions every year. The economic rationale of the system is provided in the form of a 3.6-year payback period against long-term savings of over EUR 128,000 in 26 years. This work also addresses the broader implications of energy storage and management systems on the basis of scalability and reproducibility of intervention at the building construction scale. This study provides evidence towards the requirement of informing decision-making by business managers and policy decisionmakers as a step towards the solution of issues of interest to the utilization of renewable energy at industrial levels towards world agenda harmonization for sustainability and business practice. Full article

Promoting moderate-scale land management is a crucial pathway for achieving the transformation of agricultural modernization in China. Whether migrant workers with the advantage of human capital can effectively promote moderate scale management is a problem worthy of in-depth discussion. Based on survey data from three counties in Sichuan Province in 2024, this paper empirically analyzes the impact of migrant workers’ return on farmers’ land transfer-in behavior by constructing IV-Probit and IV-Tobit models. The results show that (1) the return of migrant workers significantly promotes the land transfer-in of rural households by enhancing their risk tolerance and increasing the participation of cooperative organizations; (2) however, there is some heterogeneity in these results. The effect of the return of migrant workers in plain areas and economically developed villages on land transfer-in is stronger than that in mountainous areas and economically weak villages. Based on these findings, this paper suggests that differentiated policies should be formulated according to the natural conditions and economic foundations of different regions, making full use of the human capital advantages of returning migrant workers to effectively promote the realization of moderate-scale management among farmers. Full article

Biopolymers, such as polysaccharides, polyphenols, alkaloids, and terpenoids, found in marine algae exhibit antiviral and anticancer properties. These compounds can inhibit viral replication, induce apoptosis in cancer cells, and enhance the immune response. Their diverse bioactive properties make marine algae a promising source for the development of sustainable antiviral and anticancer therapies. A major advantage of marine algae is that they do not require freshwater or arable land and can be cultivated in seawater, thus making them sustainable substitutes for conventional resources. Additionally, their ability to sequester carbon and recycle nutrients enhances their environmental sustainability. Despite their promising biomedical potential, challenges, such as compound extraction, large-scale production, and clinical validation, must be addressed for effective drug development. The vast biological diversity of marine algae across different ocean ecosystems is a largely unexplored source of distinct chemical structures, which may be the basis for new therapeutic schemes. Despite their therapeutic potential, the translation of marine algae-derived compounds into clinical applications faces significant hurdles, including challenges in large-scale extraction, bioavailability enhancement, and regulatory approval. The need to extract particular compounds to make them available for large-scale production and to overcome issues such as bioavailability and regulatory policies are formidable challenges. Marine algae represent innovative advances in antiviral and anticancer drug development, but only when combined with ecologically sound cultivation methods, interdisciplinary approaches, and understanding. The integration of advanced biotechnological approaches, innovative gene editing techniques, and environmentally sustainable aquaculture practices is pivotal for harnessing the full potential of marine algae for the development of next-generation antiviral and anticancer therapeutics. Full article

The energy consumption structure in underdeveloped rural areas of China has long been dominated by fossil fuels. Such a structure not only makes it difficult to improve the rural living environment but also hinders the stable development of the rural economy. For these regions, improving the living environment is one of the key tasks of China’s rural revitalization strategy. As a clean energy with huge potential, renewable energy can provide a convenient and low-cost solution for the transformation of the energy structure and the improvement of the living environment in these areas. This study takes Gansu Province, a typical underdeveloped region in China, as the research area and uses a multi-objective evaluation analysis model to evaluate the potential for renewable energy substitution at the county scale in rural areas of Gansu Province. Then, through the obstacle factor analysis model, the obstacle factors of the potential for renewable energy substitution are revealed, providing a basis for the scientific formulation of energy policies and the stable development of the rural economy in underdeveloped areas. This study found that the potential for renewable energy substitution in counties of Gansu Province is generally low and shows significant temporal and spatial differences. At the criterion level, the endowment of renewable energy resources constitutes the greatest obstacle, with an average obstacle degree of 8.91%, and shows an upward trend. At the factor level, the obstacle degree of the effective irrigated area is the highest, with an average obstacle degree of 9.29%, and the interannual variation is relatively stable. In addition, the average obstacle degrees of total agricultural machinery power and the number of rural populations are also relatively high. Finally, this paper puts forward policy suggestions, such as rationally planning the development model of renewable energy, coordinating regions to give full play to economic value, and innovatively developing to enhance development capacity, in order to provide reference for relevant decision-making. Full article