Search Results (19,277)

Wildland–urban interfaces (WUIs) are critical zones for wildfire prevention in Mediterranean and semi-arid landscapes, particularly where human settlements interact with continuous combustible vegetation. In Algeria, operational tools for delineating WUI configurations and spatially prioritizing preventive actions remain limited. This study develops a GIS-based structural wildfire-risk prioritization framework for the Djebel El Ouahch massif (Constantine, northeastern Algeria) by combining WUIMAP II settlement typologies with an Aggregation Index (AI) describing the horizontal continuity of arboreal and shrub vegetation derived from Sentinel−2 data. Built-up structures were classified as isolated housing, dispersed housing, main urbanized areas, or peripheral zones and combined with three AI classes to delineate relative structural-priority areas. Dispersed and isolated housing accounted for 55% and 37% of mapped housing structures, respectively, while the WUI contained an estimated 18,100 inhabitants distributed across 3620 housing units. The resulting WUI × AI structural-priority layer covered 0.863 km², of which high- and very-high-priority zones jointly represented 0.544 km² (63.04%). These priority areas identify locations where structurally exposed settlement configurations coincide with greater horizontal fuel continuity, providing a spatial basis for targeted fuel management, surveillance planning, emergency-access improvement, and wildfire-prevention actions. By improving the spatial targeting of preventive measures, the framework can contribute to sustainable forest and land management, disaster-risk reduction, ecosystem protection, and the resilience of WUI settlements. Full article

Reliable crop mapping is essential for understanding agricultural practices, optimizing resource use, and analyzing rural dynamics, while also supporting modelling and sustainable agriculture planning. However, obtaining 10 m crop distribution maps remains challenging in Mediterranean regions, where data availability is often limited and landscapes are fragmented. The main European land use dataset, Corine Land Cover (CLC), lacks both the crop specificity required for accurate crop differentiation and the temporal frequency needed for timely monitoring. This study addresses these limitations by implementing the IOTA² automated chain in Sardinia (Italy), to create a large-scale crop map specifically targeting Mediterranean crops. The methodology leverages open-source satellite imagery with supervised machine learning, using the 2018 Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS), CLC, and Urban Atlas dataset for training. We compared two nomenclatures, detailed (32 classes) versus simplified (25 classes), testing each across three training sample sizes (10%, 50%, and 100%). Results indicate that the simplified nomenclature (N25) provided more robust performances, achieving an overall accuracy (OA) of 0.77 with full sampling, compared to 0.61 for the detailed version. These OA values refer to the subset of reference polygons held out from the reference data for independent pixel-level validation. Moreover, a final map was produced using the entire reference dataset for training and evaluated through zonal area agreement. Mapping showed high performance for specific crops like rice, citrus, and grapevine, while classes such as cereals and fruit trees presented classification challenges due to high fragmentation of the landscape and irregular crop-distribution patterns. Despite these challenges, this work delivers a 10 m spatial resolution reproducible framework that enhances thematic details of current European datasets. By running as a single automated processing chain rather than a sequence of manually executed steps, it offers a scalable solution for rapid, annual crop monitoring in complex, data-scarce Mediterranean environments. Full article

Pedestrian safety at urban intersections remains a major challenge in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSs). This study investigates whether crossing intention can be reliably inferred directly from temporal body-pose dynamics to drive real-time collision warnings on embedded edge platforms. Existing vision-based approaches that rely primarily on bounding-box proximity or scene-level spatial grids are often prone to false alarms in complex urban environments with motorcycles, stationary pedestrians, and background clutter. To overcome these limitations, we propose an end-to-end framework consisting of four sequential processing stages: (1) a perception layer integrating YOLOv8s, ByteTrack, a displacement filter, and rider suppression to generate reliable pedestrian trajectories; (2) a skeleton extraction layer utilizing YOLOv8s-pose to construct temporal sequences of 17 anatomical keypoints; (3) an ultra-lightweight Skeleton Graph Convolutional Network (SkeletonGCN, comprising 33.8 K parameters, <0.2 MB) that models body-joint kinematics and temporal motion dynamics; and (4) an image-space Time-to-Collision (TTC) risk-fusion module. While this fusion approach avoids explicit geometric camera calibration, it still relies on predefined scene-profile parameters and image-space motion assumptions. Furthermore, while the intention classifier is quantitatively evaluated, the risk-fusion module is procedurally defined, and its resulting four-level collision warnings are demonstrated operationally rather than validated against ground-truth hazard annotations. Evaluated on 49,948 valid sequences from the JAAD and PIE benchmark datasets under a strict video-level partitioning protocol, the unified SkeletonGCN achieves a macro-F1 score of 0.717 (with per-scene subset macro-F1 scores of 0.761 on JAAD/PIE urban and 0.895 on intersections), significantly outperforming baseline models. When deployed on an NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX edge device using TensorRT FP16, the full pipeline achieves an instrumented latency of 70.7 ms per frame (~14 fps) and a sustained wall-clock throughput of 7.4 fps on real-world urban dashcam video. System limitations include sensitivity to 2D printed human imagery and reduced prediction reliability under low-light nighttime conditions. Full article

Amid China’s pursuit of ecological civilization and high-quality development, a central policy challenge lies in designing environmental governance instruments that can simultaneously deliver ecological improvement and socially inclusive outcomes. Using the National Forest City (NFC) program as a representative urban ecological governance initiative, this study examines the relationship between place-based environmental certification and urban inclusive green growth (IGG) in China. Drawing on panel data from 290 prefecture-level cities over the 2000–2023 period, this study exploits the staggered rollout of the NFC program and estimates its relationship with urban inclusive green growth using a multi-period difference-in-differences framework. The results show that NFC designation is associated with a statistically significant increase in cities’ IGG performance, and this relationship remains robust across a series of alternative specifications and placebo tests. Dimension-specific estimates further show significant positive associations with economic performance, social equity, and environmental quality. Further analyses reveal pronounced heterogeneity in the estimated relationship. The positive association between NFC designation and inclusive green growth is stronger in non-resource-based cities, cities located in southern China, and core urban areas, suggesting that local development conditions and structural constraints play an important role in shaping the observed relationship. Employment-related analysis provides evidence consistent with broader city-level employment expansion as one potential pathway associated with the NFC–IGG relationship. Moreover, the positive association between NFC designation and IGG is stronger in cities with greater population mobility and where local governments place greater emphasis on innovation, underscoring the importance of complementary institutional and demographic conditions. By explicitly linking ecological governance, labor-market outcomes, and inclusive growth, this study contributes to the policy-oriented literature on urban sustainability. The findings suggest that environmental certification programs such as the NFC may provide a governance framework for connecting ecological objectives with inclusive development goals. Beyond the Chinese context, the results offer transferable insights for cities seeking to design environmental governance strategies that move beyond symbolic greening toward more integrated and socially inclusive sustainability transitions. Full article

Functional trait plasticity enables invasive plant species to establish and persist across diverse environmental conditions. Following the extensive habitat disturbance caused by the 2010 floods in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Verbesina encelioides rapidly spread into disturbed and natural habitats. This study evaluated the phenotypic plasticity and biomass allocation traits of Verbesina encelioides across five contrasting habitats (i.e., cropland, roadside, riverside, urban, and abandoned land). Habitat differences were assessed using analysis of variance with Tukey’s HSD post hoc test, while multivariate analysis was used to examine relationships among functional traits, environmental variables, and habitats. Log-transformed data were used for linear regression analyses to satisfy normality assumptions. Plant functional traits varied significantly among habitats, demonstrating substantial phenotypic plasticity. Riverside vegetation had high functional trait plasticity followed by abandoned habitats. In contrast, riverside populations had fewer branches (14.3 ± 1.4), leaves (184.7 ± 10), lower leaf area (5360 ± 77 cm²), and reduced inflorescence biomass (8.61 ± 2.1 g) than abandoned-land populations. Cropland plants were taller (106 ± 3 cm) with heavier seeds (0.30 ± 0.04 g; p < 0.05), whereas roadside plants had smaller leaves (6.1 ± 0.3 cm) but produced more flowers (38.4 ± 6.2; p < 0.001). Biomass allocation remained relatively stable across habitats (p > 0.05), with greater investment in aboveground than belowground structures. Soil texture, organic matter, temperature, and precipitation were the principal environmental variables associated with trait variation, indicating that local environmental conditions strongly influence plant performance (p < 0.05). PCA revealed that seed traits dominated the first axis and were associated with cropland and riversides. Redundancy analysis indicated that soil properties (sand, silt, pH, EC) and climatic factors (precipitation, temperature) significantly influenced trait distribution. Hierarchical cluster analysis shows that riverside was distinct from other clusters both in functional traits and environmental variables. Inter-trait correlation revealed a significant relationship between leaf and seed traits. Overall, these findings reveal that V. encelioides adjusts its growth and reproductive traits according to habitat conditions. Greater seed weight in croplands may enhance seedling establishment under competitive conditions, whereas increased flower production in disturbed roadside habitats may promote dispersal and reproductive success of the plant. The strong functional trait plasticity of V. encelioides across different habitats highlights its potential to persist under habitat disturbance and changing environmental conditions, therefore posing risk to native plant communities and ecosystem structure. These findings support the need for habitat-based monitoring, protection of native flora and restoration of disturbed areas as part of sustainable land and biodiversity management. Full article

China has proposed dual carbon goals to advance its sustainable development. As one of the country’s major sources of carbon emissions, effective emission control of the transportation sector is central to achieving these goals. There is a lack of research on the optimal allocation of emission reduction targets across transportation sub-sectors from the perspective of total cost-minimization. This paper develops a carbon emission reduction allocation model based on the Integrated MARKAL-EFOM System (TIMES) framework. The model identifies the optimal allocation scheme across different transportation sectors and technology pathways in order to minimize the total abatement cost. A marginal abatement cost curve is constructed to evaluate the cost-effectiveness and reduction potential of various schemes. Using Fujian Province in China as a research case, the results show that from 2022 to 2030, urban passenger transportation (UPT), intercity passenger transportation (IPT), and freight transportation (FT) are expected to undertake 52.7%, 11.1%, and 36.2% of the total carbon reduction potential, corresponding to emission reductions of 13.488 million tons, 2.845 million tons, and 9.255 million tons, respectively. Compared with equal allocation and turnover-proportional allocation schemes, the TIMES-based optimization reduces the overall abatement cost by 22.13 billion yuan. The model effectively minimizes the total system cost while achieving the carbon reduction targets, and the results provide a reference for formulating carbon emission mitigation policies. Full article

Urbanization is widely recognized as a major driver of biodiversity loss; however, cities can also provide important refuges for pollinators when diverse and continuous floral resources are available. This study assessed the diversity of spontaneous insect-pollinated flora and its associated pollinator communities across five major urban habitat types (grasslands, road verges, artificial surfaces, wooded areas, and wetlands) in the Mediterranean cities of Pisa, Livorno, and Lucca (central Italy). During a three-year field survey, spontaneous flowering plant species were systematically recorded, and pollinator visitation rates were quantified using standardized sampling protocols. Approximately 150 spontaneous insect-pollinated plant species were identified, providing a continuous supply of nectar and pollen throughout the flowering season. Pollinator assemblages included honey bees (Apis mellifera), solitary bees, bumblebees, Diptera, and Lepidoptera, with bees representing the dominant group across all habitats. Pollinator visitation rates differed significantly among habitat types, reaching their highest values in grasslands, road verges, and wetlands, whereas wooded habitats and artificial surfaces supported significantly lower pollinator activity. Numerous plant species belonging to diverse botanical families attracted a broad range of pollinator taxa, revealing complex plant–pollinator interactions and demonstrating the ecological value of spontaneous urban vegetation for sustaining pollinator diversity. In summary, the present study shows that spontaneous flora constitutes a fundamental component of urban green infrastructure, supporting pollination services and enhancing ecological connectivity within cities. Biodiversity-friendly management strategies that conserve and promote spontaneous flowering vegetation should therefore be considered a key element of sustainable urban planning and the ecological resilience of Mediterranean urban landscapes. Full article

China’s rapid urbanization and industrialization have led to a severe shortage of water resources. China’s water scarcity problem is characterized by the mismatch between water resources, economic development, and the spatial distribution of production factors. Therefore, it is significant to study the complex dynamic relationship of water resource flow in space to alleviate regional water scarcity and realize sustainable development. In this study, the spatial effects and key influencing factors of the inter-provincial water-resource flow network in China were examined using water-resource consumption as a measure. The results show that the total water footprint showed an upward trend during the study period, and the water footprints of Xinjiang and Jiangsu were much higher than those of other regions. The hotspot areas of inter-provincial water footprint of inflow (WFI) were mainly concentrated in water-abundant areas, while the hotspot areas of water footprint of outflow (WFO) were concentrated in water-scarce areas, and the flow pattern lacked rationality. The local spatial structures of WFI and WFO were found to be relatively stable and showed a trend of synergistic change, with a higher degree of spatial agglomeration in WFO compared to WFI. Considering China’s future water resource security and sustainable development, economic development and scientific and technological inputs should play a more important role in alleviating pressure on the major water-resource-exporting provinces and optimizing the inter-provincial water-resource flow pattern. Full article

Coastal deltas worldwide are among the regions most vulnerable to land subsidence caused by intensive groundwater extraction, posing serious challenges to urban infrastructure and environmental sustainability. Shanghai exemplifies a typical coastal city experiencing severe land subsidence. Although groundwater abstraction has been strictly regulated and largely prohibited for most purposes, dewatering during deep excavations has become the primary cause of groundwater level fluctuations and the associated soil deformation. This study investigates the deformation mechanisms of Shanghai’s soft soil strata (layers ④ and ⑤₃) under complex groundwater level fluctuations, using a multi-scale experimental approach. Stress-path-controlled triaxial tests were conducted to simulate staged dewatering, repeated dewatering, and artificial recharge processes. The results reveal an approximately linear stress–strain relationship during dewatering, with cumulative irreversible compression observed after cyclic loading. Partial deformation recovery occurred upon recharge, but only at relatively low pressure levels; once the recharge pressure exceeded a certain threshold, considerable axial compression was induced even as radial expansion continued. Microstructural analyses using an Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope (ESEM) and Mercury Intrusion Porosimetry (MIP) show that cyclic effective stress led to the fragmentation of clay aggregates and pore collapse, reducing total pore volume by approximately 10–17%. The deformation mechanism is attributed to the slippage and reorientation of clay particles under face-to-face (F–F) and line-to-face (L–F) contacts. These findings provide critical insights into the multi-scale behavior of soft soils under hydraulic stress and support the development of more sustainable land subsidence mitigation strategies in urban environments. Full article

Community Mobile Health Vehicles (CMHVs) represent an innovative healthcare delivery model that integrates medical services into residents’ daily community life. By extending healthcare coverage to underserved populations, CMHVs can improve access to health management services while enhancing the efficiency of healthcare resource utilization. However, existing studies have primarily focused on health outcomes or the adoption of digital health technologies, with limited attention paid to users’ willingness to utilize CMHVs and their relationship with sustainability dimensions, including social equity, economic efficiency, and environmental responsibility. Drawing on survey data collected from community residents in China, this study employs Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) to identify the key determinants influencing users’ willingness to use CMHVs. Furthermore, the Entropy Weight Method (EWM) is applied to prioritize both the identified factors and their corresponding design strategies according to their relative importance. The results reveal five principal determinants: Cognitive Ease, System Adaptability, Institutional Trustworthiness, Technical Reliability, and Environmental Compliance. These factors and their associated design strategies exhibit varying levels of importance in promoting user engagement, optimizing resource allocation, and facilitating community integration. Based on the findings, this study proposes a set of sustainability-oriented design prioritization strategies for CMHV service systems. The proposed framework provides both theoretical and empirical insights for urban healthcare service planning and supports the coordinated achievement of economic, social, and environmental sustainability goals. The study further offers evidence-based guidance for the implementation, continuous improvement, and long-term sustainability of CMHVs within urban healthcare and mobile health service systems. Full article

In recent decades, the intensification of the urban heat island (UHI) phenomenon has emerged as a critical challenge for European cities, exacerbated by climate change, dense urban morphologies, and the aging performance of the existing building stock. In this context, the renovation of post-war residential heritage represents a strategic opportunity to simultaneously enhance buildings’ energy performance and contribute to urban-scale thermal mitigation. This study investigates sustainable and integrated retrofitting strategies applied to residential buildings constructed between 1945 and 1990 in the metropolitan area of Milan. The research aims to evaluate how targeted refurbishment interventions can improve building energy performance and potentially support UHI mitigation through improved envelope performance and material selection. The methodology combines field surveys, archival data from public housing authorities, energy simulations, and multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) analysis, integrating economic, environmental, and performance-based indicators. Several retrofit scenarios are assessed across different building typologies. Results highlight that low-invasive and cost-effective measures, such as advanced glazing systems, roof insulation, and efficient heating system upgrades, achieve a favorable balance between energy performance improvement, economic feasibility, and intervention-related criteria. For buildings with larger dispersing surfaces, envelope insulation solutions using sustainable materials demonstrate increased effectiveness. Beyond individual building performance, the study discusses the potential indirect contribution of large-scale retrofit strategies to UHI mitigation through reduced building energy requirements and potentially lower HVAC-related anthropogenic heat emissions. The proposed operational framework supports public stakeholders in prioritizing interventions across a large building stock, offering a replicable decision-support tool for climate-resilient urban regeneration and for supporting UHI mitigation strategies. Full article

Centella asiatica (L.) Urban extracts are widely used in food, cosmetic, and pharmaceutical products. Conventional solvent extraction requires organic solvents and often produces dark green extracts due to chlorophyll co-extraction, limiting their industrial applications. This study developed an environmentally friendly aqueous two-phase system (ATPS) for the simultaneous extraction of triterpenoids of Centella asiatica. Response surface methodology with a central composite design was employed to optimize ethanol concentration, ammonium sulfate concentration, and temperature. A rapid and validated HPLC method for quantification of four triterpenoids—madecassoside, asiaticoside, madecassic acid, and asiatic acid—was developed and validated on a Poroshell 120 SB-C18 column (3.0 × 150 mm, 2.7 microns) at 40 °C. The developed method for all four triterpenoids was rapid (14 min run time) with acceptable system suitability, specificity, linearity (R > 0.9995), accuracy (98.42–101.52%), precision (0.16–1.36%), LOD (0.04–0.64 µg/mL), and LOQ (0.13–1.93 µg/mL). The ANOVA data from the central composite design of response surface methodology for total triterpenoid content were fitted with quadratic models, yielding acceptable R² (>0.97), adjusted R² (>0.95), and predicted R² (>0.80). The optimum extraction conditions were 18.29% w/w ethanol, 33.93% w/w ammonium sulfate, and 60.04 °C, yielding a total triterpenoid content of 30.53 mg g⁻¹ dry weight. The optimized ATPS produced higher yields of madecassoside (13.15 mg g⁻¹), asiaticoside (9.02 mg g⁻¹), madecassic acid (5.26 mg g⁻¹), and asiatic acid (3.10 mg g⁻¹) than conventional ethanol extraction while simultaneously reducing chlorophyll-derived coloration. This ATPS extraction strategy provides a sustainable approach for producing suitable Centella asiatica extracts for cosmeceutical and pharmaceutical applications. Full article

The external servicescapes surrounding tourist attractions influence visitor emotions and contribute to the sustainable development of urban tourism destinations. However, the relationship between objective streetscape visual elements and subjective emotions from a big data perspective remains unclear. This study examines their predictive capacity, relative model-based importance, and nonlinear association patterns using 14,968 street-view images from 178 tourist-attraction AOIs in Shanghai and UGC-derived emotion scores. Drawing on servicescape theory and a data-driven sustainability perspective, semantic segmentation was used to classify streetscape visual elements into three dimensions (environmental conditions, spatial layout and signage or symbols). Among the evaluated models, the MLP ensemble achieved the strongest out-of-sample performance, but its test-set R² was only 0.026, indicating limited out-of-sample predictive capacity. SHAP analysis revealed that environmental conditions and spatial layout and functionality jointly accounted for 89.3% of the total absolute SHAP attribution, although the model’s overall predictive power remained low. PDP analysis further identified distinct nonlinear response patterns across streetscape features. This study extends servicescape research to open tourism environments and provides exploratory evidence for sustainable streetscape management around tourist attractions. Full article

Adaptive reuse has emerged as a key strategy for sustainable urban regeneration by preserving cultural heritage while addressing contemporary socio-economic needs. It also contributes to climate-sensitive urban development through the conservation of embodied carbon, reduction in construction waste, retention of climate-responsive urban forms and enhancement of urban resilience. This study investigates the adaptive reuse of two historic khans in Cyprus using a post-occupancy evaluation (POE) framework to assess their transformation into public and commercial facilities. Combining literature review, on-site observations and structured questionnaires with users and occupants of adjacent properties, the research evaluates accessibility, functional compatibility, urban integration, user satisfaction, economic vitality, environmental quality, management effectiveness and socio-cultural performance. The findings show that successful adaptive reuse extends beyond architectural conservation to strengthen urban vitality, social inclusion and economic activity while supporting the long-term sustainability of historic districts. Well-integrated projects improve walkability, reinforce public life and contribute to climate-sensitive development by extending building life cycles, reducing embodied carbon and preserving passive environmental characteristics. The study demonstrates that post-occupancy evaluation offers an effective framework for assessing the long-term functional, socio-economic and environmental performance of adaptive reuse projects, arguing that heritage conservation and climate-sensitive urban planning are complementary strategies for resilient and sustainable cities. Full article

This study examines professionals’ assessments of the contribution of Internet of Things (IoT)-based smart water management systems (SWMS) to urban water efficiency and sustainability in Greece. Using a cross-sectional survey design, data were collected from 296 professionals with knowledge and experience relevant to water management. The analysis focuses on four IoT dimensions: real-time monitoring, automated leakage detection, consumption data analytics, and smart irrigation control and their associations with perceived urban water efficiency and sustainability. Multiple regression analysis showed that all four IoT dimensions were positively and significantly associated with perceived urban water efficiency and sustainability, with real-time monitoring showing the strongest standardized association, followed by consumption data analytics, automated leakage detection, and smart irrigation control. The findings provide component-level evidence that different IoT capabilities are not equally associated with perceived urban water efficiency and sustainability. The results may inform the prioritization of smart-water capabilities in professional and policy decision-making, while recognizing that the study is perception-based and does not directly measure project-level water savings or economic performance. Full article