scholarly journals Emergy Comparison of Typical Coastal Urban Ecosystems in China

Complexity ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fuqiang Qin ◽  
Lifang Wang ◽  
Shifen Shao

With outstanding geographical location and rich natural resources, coastal cities have become concentrated and active areas of human social and economic production. Furthermore, a large number of human activities have posed a great deal of ecological environmental pressure to coastal ecological areas. The emergy analysis method is selected to construct an index system with a total of nine indicators at five levels, including emergy source structure, social subsystem, economic subsystem, environmental subsystem, and comprehensive evaluation of sustainable development. The development level of subsystems and the sustainable development ability of ecosystem in Shenzhen, Dalian, Ningbo, Qingdao, and Xiamen were evaluated. The emergy sustainable index of the five cities is 0.10, 0.23, 0.31, 0.49, and 0.93, respectively. According to the evaluation results, coastal cities should comprehensively optimize the population structure, reasonably develop natural resources, make efficient use of marine resources, attach importance to the source control of pollutants, and strive to build a modern economy, so as to realize the sustainable development of coastal urban ecosystem.

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 3326
Author(s):  
Nidia Isabel Molina-Gómez ◽  
Karen Rodríguez-Rojas ◽  
Dayam Calderón-Rivera ◽  
José Luis Díaz-Arévalo ◽  
P. Amparo López-Jiménez

Different studies have been carried out to evaluate the progress made by countries and cities towards achieving sustainability to compare its evolution. However, the micro-territorial level, which encompasses a community perspective, has not been examined through a comprehensive forecasting method of sustainability categories with machine learning tools. This study aims to establish a method to forecast the sustainability levels of an urban ecosystem through supervised modeling. To this end, it was necessary to establish a set of indicators that characterize the dimensions of sustainable development, consistent with the Sustainable Development Goals. Using the data normalization technique to process the information and combining it in different dimensions made it possible to identify the sustainability level of the urban zone for each year from 2009 to 2017. The resulting information was the basis for the supervised classification. It was found that the sustainability level in the micro-territory has been improving from a low level in 2009, which increased to a medium level in the subsequent years. Forecasts of the sustainability levels of the zone were possible by using decision trees, neural networks, and support vector machines, in which 70% of the data were used to train the machine learning tools, with the remaining 30% used for validation. According to the performance metrics, decision trees outperformed the other two tools.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 462 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Dickens ◽  
Vladimir Smakhtin ◽  
Matthew McCartney ◽  
Gordon O’Brien ◽  
Lula Dahir

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), are high on the agenda for most countries of the world. In its publication of the SDGs, the UN has provided the goals and target descriptions that, if implemented at a country level, would lead towards a sustainable future. The IAEG (InterAgency Expert Group of the SDGs) was tasked with disseminating indicators and methods to countries that can be used to gather data describing the global progress towards sustainability. However, 2030 Agenda leaves it to countries to adopt the targets with each government setting its own national targets guided by the global level of ambition but taking into account national circumstances. At present, guidance on how to go about this is scant but it is clear that the responsibility is with countries to implement and that it is actions at a country level that will determine the success of the SDGs. Reporting on SDGs by country takes on two forms: i) global reporting using prescribed indicator methods and data; ii) National Voluntary Reviews where a country reports on its own progress in more detail but is also able to present data that are more appropriate for the country. For the latter, countries need to be able to adapt the global indicators to fit national priorities and context, thus the global description of an indicator could be reduced to describe only what is relevant to the country. Countries may also, for the National Voluntary Review, use indicators that are unique to the country but nevertheless contribute to measurement of progress towards the global SDG target. Importantly, for those indicators that relate to the security of natural resources security (e.g., water) indicators, there are no prescribed numerical targets/standards or benchmarks. Rather countries will need to set their own benchmarks or standards against which performance can be evaluated. This paper presents a procedure that would enable a country to describe national targets with associated benchmarks that are appropriate for the country. The procedure builds on precedent set in other countries but in particular on a procedure developed for the setting of Resource Quality Objectives in South Africa. The procedure focusses on those SDG targets that are natural resource-security focused, for example, extent of water-related ecosystems (6.6), desertification (15.3) and so forth, because the selection of indicator methods and benchmarks is based on the location of natural resources, their use and present state and how they fit into national strategies.


2010 ◽  
Vol 129-131 ◽  
pp. 42-45
Author(s):  
Li Fang Qiao ◽  
Lei Feng ◽  
Lian Fang Yao ◽  
Xin Zheng Li

The landscape industry has become one of the industries with higher resource and energy consumption, and the implementation of urban low-carbon landscape construction is of great significance to improve the ecological environment. In this study, the method of low-carbon landscape construction was studied from two aspects including the carbon source control and carbon sink, as well as both direct and indirect effect. The results showed that the low-carbon landscape construction can be controlled from five aspects including landscape planning, landscape design, low-carbon landscape technology, low-carbon landscape behavior and low-carbon policy. Through a series of low-carbon measures, carbon emissions can be controlled at a reasonable level during the urban landscape construction, which also promotes the sustainable development of urban ecological environment.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Ali ◽  
Richard R. Shaker

The realization of the critical issues that have been faced by the global community has put a particular focus on assessing the sustainable development of countries. Africa is an area that needs an assessment of sustainable development. With Africa holding over 52% of the world’s natural resources reserves, it is imperative to assess the sustainable development of the countries. The study evaluated what the underlying and spatial distribution on sustainable development was in Africa. Six dimensions of underlying sustainability and three significant signs of spatial autocorrelation were found. This provided information about the sustainability vulnerabilities within Africa. With the majority of the underlying dimensions displaying a socioeconomic focus on sustainability. Showing the collected indices result in a lack of coverage on the environmental side across the countries of Africa.


2021 ◽  
Vol 250 ◽  
pp. 04010
Author(s):  
Vyacheslav Ilgov ◽  
Zhanna Gardanova ◽  
Natalya Nikitina

Our paper aims at assessing the sustainable development of the universities in the 21st century that is market by globalization, high penetration of information and communication technologies as well as global environmental changes. The paper stresses that the higher education is undergoing profound changes in its role and its position in the society and should focus its attention to the environmental challenges and the fight again the global warming. Higher education is ripe for reforms that are not intended to disrupt its main goals and its very essence but that might help it to modernize its approaches to achieving the up-to-date objectives that would maximize its contribution to the development of the society. Therefore, it appears that governments and the civil society alike should put more effort into embedding the sustainable development principles as well as sustainable development goals (SDG) into the educational curricular of the universities regardless to their geographical location.


2021 ◽  
Vol 110 ◽  
pp. 01040
Author(s):  
Alexey V. Vasilchikov ◽  
Oksana S. Chechina ◽  
Svetlana A. Nikonorova ◽  
Maria V. Rakhova

Unevenness is a feature of sustainable development of Russian territories. It arises due to the impressive difference in the provision of natural resources, residents’ mentality, natural and climate factors, the infrastructure that has formed over the years of territory’s existence, and other various conditions. The purpose of the issue is the research of the main factors reflecting the sustainability of development of Russia and proposes directions for improving the social, economic and environmental policy of the country.


Author(s):  
Liudmila Lapochkina ◽  
Elena Vetrova

Circumpolar territories and the regions related to the Arctic are those rich with natural resources. They have a high potential for the development of mining and extractive industries. The abundance with resources makes the North increasingly attractive for investments. However, circumpolar territories are characterized by peculiar socio-economic, natural, and climatic conditions which taken together frequently pose a negative impact on people and hinder the exploration opportunities of the Arctic resources. In global, regional, and sub-regional levels, the development of the Arctic is heavily regulated by multilateral international treaties. However, the issues of monitoring and assessment of the sustainable development of the Arctic remain open, which stems from the absence of agreed criteria and indicators for assessing sustainability in the context of national, regional, and scientific approaches. It necessitates the development of a specific methodological approach to the establishment of a system to monitor and assess the sustainable development of the Arctic.


Author(s):  
Didem Dizdaroglu ◽  
Tan Yigitcanlar ◽  
Les Dawes

In recent years, cities have shown increasing signs of environmental problems due to the negative impacts of urban activities. The degradation and depletion of natural resources, climate change, and development pressure on green areas have become major concerns for cities. In response to these problems, urban planning policies have shifted to a sustainable focus and authorities have begun to develop new strategies for improving the quality of urban ecosystems. An extremely important function of an urban ecosystem is to provide healthy and sustainable environments for both natural systems and communities. Therefore, ecological planning is a functional requirement in the establishment of sustainable built environment. With ecological planning, human needs are supplied while natural resources are used in the most effective and sustainable manner and ecological balance is sustained. Protecting human and environmental health, having healthy ecosystems, reducing environmental pollution and providing green spaces are just a few of the many benefits of ecological planning. In this context, this chapter briefly presents a short overview of the importance of the implementation of ecological planning into sustainable urban development. Furthermore, it presents a conceptual framework for a new methodology for developing sustainable urban ecosystems through ecological planning approach.


Author(s):  
Julia de Bruyn ◽  
Brigitte Bagnol ◽  
Hilary H. Chan ◽  
Delia Grace ◽  
Marisa E. V. Mitchell ◽  
...  

Achieving sustainable, ethical food systems in support of human and planetary health is among the greatest challenges facing the global community. Globally, 815 million people are chronically undernourished, 108 million children and 604 million adults are obese, and more than two billion people are at risk of micronutrient deficiencies. Animal-source foods (ASFs), including milk, meat, fish, and eggs, provide high-quality protein and a variety of micronutrients in forms readily absorbed and used by the human body. Current research continues to explore the nutritional contributions of ASFs, their interactions with other dietary components, and their role in healthy human growth and development. This chapter uses the framework of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) to consider the value of ASFs in human diets across a range of settings. It discusses opportunities for multidisciplinary efforts that harness science, technology, and innovation (STI) to mitigate risks of foodborne disease, to promote the efficient management of natural resources, to reduce nutrient losses within livestock value chains, and to support gender- and culturally sensitive communication around livestock management and human nutrition. In support of the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development, this chapter proposes opportunities to meet the nutritional needs of current and future populations while supporting biodiversity and conserving scarce natural resources.


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