scholarly journals Is global dimming and brightening in Japan limited to urban areas?

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katsumasa Tanaka ◽  
Atsumu Ohmura ◽  
Doris Folini ◽  
Martin Wild ◽  
Nozomu Ohkawara
Keyword(s):  
Solar Radiation ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Temporal Trends ◽  
Surface Radiation ◽  
Surface Solar Radiation ◽  
Decadal Time Scale ◽  
Global Dimming ◽  
Urban And Rural Areas

Abstract. Observations worldwide indicate secular trends of all-sky surface solar radiation on decadal time scale, termed global dimming and brightening. Accordingly, the observed surface radiation in Japan generally shows a strong decline till the end of the 1980s and then a recovery toward around 2000. Because a substantial number of measurement stations are located within or proximate to populated areas, one may speculate that the observed trends are strongly influenced by local air pollution and are thus not of large-scale significance. This hypothesis poses a serious question as to what regional extent the global dimming and brightening are significant: Are the global dimming and brightening truly global phenomena, or regional or even only local? Our study focused on 14 meteorological observatories that measured all-sky surface solar radiation, zenith transmittance, and maximum transmittance. On the basis of municipality population time series, historical land use maps, recent satellite images, and actual site visits, we concluded that eight stations had been significantly influenced by urbanization, with the remaining six stations being left pristine. Between the urban and rural areas, no marked differences were identified in the temporal trends of the aforementioned meteorological parameters. Our finding suggests that global dimming and brightening in Japan occurred on a large scale, independently of urbanization.

scholarly journals Is global dimming and brightening in Japan limited to urban areas?

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (21) ◽  
pp. 13969-14001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katsumasa Tanaka ◽  
Atsumu Ohmura ◽  
Doris Folini ◽  
Martin Wild ◽  
Nozomu Ohkawara
Keyword(s):  
Solar Radiation ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Temporal Trends ◽  
Surface Radiation ◽  
Surface Solar Radiation ◽  
Decadal Time Scale ◽  
Global Dimming ◽  
Urban And Rural Areas

Abstract. Worldwide observations indicate secular trends of all-sky surface solar radiation on a decadal time scale, termed global dimming and brightening. Accordingly, the observed surface radiation in Japan generally shows a strong decline until the end of the 1980s and then a recovery until around 2000. Because a substantial number of measurement stations are located within or close to populated areas, one may speculate that the observed trends are strongly influenced by local air pollution and are thus not of large-scale significance. This hypothesis poses a serious question as to what regional extent the global dimming and brightening are significant: are the global dimming and brightening truly global phenomena, or regional, or even only local? Our study focused on 14 meteorological observatories that measured all-sky surface solar radiation, zenith transmittance, and maximum transmittance. On the basis of municipality population time series, historical land use maps, recent satellite images, and actual site visits, we concluded that eight stations have been significantly influenced by urbanization, with the remaining six stations being left pristine. Between the urban and rural areas, no marked differences were identified in the temporal trends of the aforementioned meteorological parameters. Our findings suggest that global dimming and brightening in Japan occurred on a large scale, independently of urbanization.

scholarly journals Urbanization effect on sunshine duration during global dimming and brightening periods in China

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yawen Wang ◽  
Martin Wild ◽  
Arturo Sanchez-Lorenzo ◽  
Yonghui Yang ◽  
Veronica Manara ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Air Pollution ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Average Rate ◽  
Sunshine Duration ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Urbanization Effect ◽  
Surface Solar Radiation ◽  
Decadal Variations ◽  
Global Dimming ◽  
Urban And Rural Areas

Abstract. There is an ongoing debate on whether the observed decadal variations in surface solar radiation, known as "dimming and brightening", are a global or just local phenomenon. We investigated this issue using a comprehensive set of long-term sunshine duration records from China, which experienced a rapid growth in urbanization during past decades. 172 pairs of urban and nearby rural stations were analyzed over the period 1960–1989 ("dimming phase") and 1990–2013 ("brightening phase"). There is a large overlap in urban and rural sunshine duration trends for both dimming (≈ 86 %) and brightening (≈ 84 %) phases. This indicates that rather than urban dimming or rural brightening, the global dimming and brightening phenomena are more of national/regional scale in China. In the dimming phase, sunshine duration significantly declined in both urban and rural areas at an average rate of −0.20 h d−1 decade−1 and −0.14 h d−1 decade−1 respectively, i.e. rural dimming has been around two-thirds of urban dimming. This ratio generally increases from a minimum of 0.39 to a maximum of 0.87 with increasing indices of urbanization, reaching saturation when the urbanization level exceeds 50 %, or the urban population exceeds 20 million persons, or the population density becomes higher than 250 person km−2. Urbanization can be treated as a useful indicator for anthropogenic air pollution in studying pollution-driven changes in sunshine duration during the dimming phase when pollution control and monitoring were largely absent. After the transition into the brightening phase, the increasing number of environment-related laws and regulations as well as investments in the abatement of environmental pollution might have helped in counteracting air pollutants generated during the urbanization process. Therefore, in the brightening phase, urbanization no longer simply indicates an increase in air pollution and its effect on sunshine duration becomes insignificant. In conclusion, urbanization can give a general indication of pollution-driven sunshine dimming until pollution regulations become effective.

scholarly journals They’re Dying in the Suburbs: COVID-19 Cases and Deaths by Geography in Louisiana (USA)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alina Schnake-Mahl ◽  
Usama Bilal
Keyword(s):  
New Orleans ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Temporal Trends ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Suburban Areas ◽  
Incidence And Mortality ◽  
The Us ◽  
Urban And Rural Areas ◽  
Second Peak

AbstractThe national COVID-19 conversation in the US has mostly focused on urban areas, without sufficient examination of another geography with large vulnerable populations: the suburbs. While suburbs are often thought of as areas of uniform affluence and racial homogeneity, over the past 20 years, poverty and diversity have increased substantially in the suburbs. In this study, we compare geographic and temporal trends in COVID-19 cases and deaths in Louisiana, one of the few states with high rates of COVID-19 during both the spring and summer. We find that incidence and mortality rates were initially highest in New Orleans. By the second peak, trends reversed: suburban areas experienced higher rates than New Orleans and similar rates to other urban and rural areas. We also find that increased social vulnerability was associated with increased positivity and incidence during the first peak. During the second peak, these associations reversed in New Orleans while persisting in other urban, suburban, and rural areas. The work draws attention to the high rates of COVID-19 cases and deaths in suburban areas and the importance of metropolitan-wide actions to address COVID-19.RegistrationN/AFunding sourceNIH (DP5OD26429) and RWJF (77644)Code and data availabilityCode for replication along with data is available here: https://github.com/alinasmahl1/COVID_Louisiana_Suburban/.

scholarly journals The Current Situation and Future Trend of Leukemia Mortality by Sex and Area in China

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Baojing Li ◽  
Hong Tang ◽  
Zilu Cheng ◽  
Yuxiao Zhang ◽  
Hao Xiang
Keyword(s):  
Rural Areas ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Rural China ◽  
National Level ◽  
Temporal Trends ◽  
Future Trend ◽  
Mortality Trends ◽  
Projection Model ◽  
Precautionary Measures ◽  
Urban And Rural Areas

Leukemia is one of the most common cancers. We conducted this study to comprehensively analyze the temporal trends of leukemia mortality during 2003–2017 and project the trends until 2030. We extracted national-level data on annual leukemia mortality from China Health Statistics Yearbooks (2003–2017). We applied the Joinpoint regression model to assess leukemia mortality trends in urban and rural China by sex during 2003–2017. We also produced sex-specific leukemia mortality using the adjusted Global Burden Disease (GBD) 2016 projection model. In urban areas, age-standardized leukemia mortality decreased significantly among females during 2003–2017 (APC = −0.9%; 95% CI: −1.7, −0.1%). In rural areas, significant decreases of age-standardized leukemia mortality were both found among males (APC = −1.7%; 95% CI: −2.9, −0.5%) and females (APC = −1.6%; 95% CI: −2.6, −0.7%) from 2008 to 2017. Rural-urban and sex disparities of leukemia mortality will continue to exist until the year 2030. According to projection, the leukemia mortality rates of males and rural populations are higher than that of females and urban populations. In 2030, leukemia mortality is projected to decrease to 3.03/100,000 and 3.33/100,000 among the males in urban and rural areas, respectively. In females, leukemia mortality will decrease to 1.87/100,000 and 2.26/100,000 among urban and rural areas, respectively. Our study suggests that more precautionary measures to reduce leukemia mortality are need, and more attention should be paid to rural residents and males in primary prevention of leukemia in China.

China’s Low-Carbon Urbanization Progress and Pathway

2015 ◽  
Vol 03 (04) ◽  
pp. 1550028
Author(s):  
Benfan LIANG ◽  
Jiahua PAN ◽  
Ying ZHANG ◽  
Yanchun MENG ◽  
Shouxian ZHU
Keyword(s):  
Rural Areas ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Great Influence ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
High Carbon ◽  
Ecological Civilization ◽  
Urbanization Rate ◽  
Urban And Rural Areas

Low-carbon urbanization is the integration of urbanization and low carbonization. It is the low-carbon transformation of current urban areas, the new trend of developing model of urban and rural areas, which includes the low-carbon transition in production, living style, and ecological spaces, the low-carbon reform in economy, society, structure, and the developing model, as well as changing urban areas from high-carbon style to low-carbon style. The urbanization rate of China is almost the same with global average level, and is expected to reach 80% in 2050. Currently, urbanization replaces industrialization, becoming an important force influencing socio-economic development, climate and ecological environment changes, international relations, and political patterns. With a 2[Formula: see text]C rise in temperature, human beings have to face a series of risks brought by climate change. China’s large-scale urbanization is of great influence on others. In this context, it is necessary to take a scientific cognition of China’s urbanization process, clarifying urbanization developing pathway, turning carbon constraints into carbon bonus, avoiding high-carbon lock, and then to take opportunities in promoting economic structure under “new normal” conditions, accelerating the upgrade from urban civilization to ecological civilization, and to reach both 100-year goal and low-carbon developing goal, leading sustainable development globally.

Connected Countryside: The Inhibiting Effect of Social Media on Rural Social Movements

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Schuler ◽  
Mai Truong
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Online Communication ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Information Flows ◽  
Urban Movements ◽  
Urban And Rural Areas

While much research focuses on social media and urban movements, almost no research explores its potentially divergent effects in rural areas. Building on recent work emphasizing the multidimensional effects of online communication on vertical and horizontal information, we argue that while the Internet may facilitate large-scale urban movements, it inhibits large-scale rural movements. Because social media increases vertical information flows between government and citizens, the central government responds quickly to rural protests, preventing such protests from developing into a large-scale movement. By contrast, social media does less to change the vertical information flows in urban areas. We explore the plausibility of our argument by process tracing the evolution of protests in urban and rural areas in Vietnam in the pre-Internet and in the Internet eras.

scholarly journals Enhancing Food Security by Institutionalizing Collaborative Food Alliances in Urban Areas

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (15) ◽  
pp. 4103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vibhas Sukhwani ◽  
Arie Nurzaman ◽  
Nadia Paramitha Kusumawardhani ◽  
Anwaar Mohammed AlHinai ◽  
Liu Hanyu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Food Security ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Policy Coordination ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Urban And Rural Areas ◽  
Multi Stakeholder ◽  
Key Aspects

Narrowing the food supply-demand gaps between urban and rural areas within a regional space has today become a serious challenge due to the growing urban population. Resultantly, urban markets are increasingly being dominated by industrial food chains, despite their negative socio-environmental impacts. To address this issue, this paper discusses the need and significance of ‘Collaborative Food Alliances’ (CFAs), which promote the direct supply of food products from rural farmers to urban residents through improved producer–consumer relationships. Based on the literature survey, this study underlines that the current CFAs are confronted with several challenges including the small scale of functioning and limited financing. While the current research on CFAs is focused on theoretical place-based studies, this paper argues that institutionalization of CFAs at a large scale is highly important for enhancing food security in urban areas. It mainly deliberates on two key aspects: (a) The process of institutionalizing CFAs and (b) A feasible financing mechanism to support CFAs. This paper emphasizes that urban local governments have a central role to play in institutionalizing CFAs, either as a lead agency or as a facilitator. It concludes with specific suggestions on three key determinants of multi-stakeholder engagement, financial constraints and policy coordination at a regional level.

scholarly journals Understanding the Diversity of Urban–Rural Fringe Development in a Fast Urbanizing Region of China

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 2373
Author(s):  
Guoyu Li ◽  
Yu CAO ◽  
Zhichao He ◽  
Ju He ◽  
Yu Cao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Rural Areas ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Yangtze River Delta ◽  
Change Processes ◽  
Development Patterns ◽  
Developing Cities ◽  
Urban Rural ◽  
Urban And Rural Areas ◽  
The Yangtze River Delta

The territories between urban and rural areas, also called urban–rural fringe, commonly present inherent instability and notable heterogeneity. However, investigating the multifaceted urban–rural fringe phenomenon based on large-scale identification has yet to be undertaken. In this study, we adopted a handy clustering-based method by incorporating multidimensional urbanization indicators to understand how the urban–rural fringe development vary across space and shift over time in the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration, China. The results show that (1) the growth magnitude of urban–rural fringe areas was greater than urban areas, whereas their growth rate was remarkably lower. (2) The landscape dynamics of urban–rural fringe varied markedly between fast-developing and slow-developing cities. Peripheral sprawl, inter-urban bridge, and isolated growth were the representative development patterns of urban–rural fringe in this case. (3) Urban–rural fringe development has predominantly occurred where cultivated land is available, and significant inter-provincial differences and tendency shifts have been found in the land cover change processes therein. Our findings indicate that the urban–rural fringe development should be considered as a stage-dependent and place-specific process. This work extends previous knowledge by unraveling the diversity of urban–rural fringe in a fast urbanizing region, and can provide insights into reorienting the spatial planning and land use management within the urban–rural interface.

scholarly journals Urbanization effect on trends in sunshine duration in China

2017 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 839-851 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yawen Wang ◽  
Martin Wild ◽  
Arturo Sanchez-Lorenzo ◽  
Veronica Manara
Keyword(s):  
Rural Areas ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Sunshine Duration ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Urbanization Effect ◽  
Surface Solar Radiation ◽  
Urbanization Level ◽  
Decadal Variations

Abstract. There is an ongoing debate on whether the observed decadal variations in surface solar radiation, known as dimming and brightening periods, are a large-scale or solely local phenomenon. We investigated this issue using long-term sunshine duration records from China, which experienced a rapid increase in urbanization during the past decades. Over the period 1960–2013, 172 pairs of urban and nearby rural stations were analyzed. Urban and rural sunshine duration trends show similar spatial patterns during a dimming phase (1960–1989) and a subsequent period during which trends were leveling off (1990–2013). This indicates that rather than local effects, the trends in sunshine duration are on more of a national or regional scale in China. Nevertheless, in the dimming phase, the declining rate of sunshine duration in rural areas is around two-thirds of that in urban areas. The ratio of rural to urban dimming generally increases from a minimum of 0.39 to a maximum of 0.87 with increasing indices of urbanization calculated based on the year 2013. It reaches a maximum when the urbanization level exceeds 50 %, the urban population exceeds 20 million, or the population density becomes higher than 250 person km−2. After the transition into the leveling-off period, sunshine duration trends are no longer significantly affected by urbanization. Meanwhile, the number of laws and regulations related to air pollution and investment in pollution treatment have been increasing in China.

scholarly journals Patterns of Alcohol Consumption in the PURE Poland Cohort Study and Their Relationship with Health Problems

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (8) ◽  
pp. 4185
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Zatońska ◽  
Piotr Psikus ◽  
Alicja Basiak-Rasała ◽  
Zuzanna Stępnicka ◽  
Maria Wołyniec ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cohort Study ◽  
Alcohol Consumption ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Level Of Education ◽  
Adult Participants ◽  
Frequent Consumption ◽  
Urban And Rural Areas ◽  
Socio Demographic Factors ◽  
High Level

(1) Background: Alcohol is a leading risk factor of premature morbidity and mortality. The objective of this study was to investigate the patterns of alcohol consumption in the PURE Poland cohort study baseline. (2) Methods: A Polish cohort was enrolled in the baseline study in 2007–2010. The study group consisted of 2021 adult participants of urban and rural areas from the Lower Silesia voivodeship in Poland (747 men and 1274 women). (3) Results: In the overall study population, 67.3% were current drinkers, 10.3% were former drinkers, and 22.4% were abstainers. Current use of alcohol products was more prevalent in men (77.2%), people living in urban areas (73.0%), and people with a higher level of education (78.0%). The percentage of current drinkers decreased with increasing age (from 73.4% in 30- to 44-year-olds to 48.8% in participants aged 64 and more). The majority of participants (89.2%) declared a low level of alcohol intake. The chance of high level of intake of alcohol was four times higher in men than in women (OR 4.17; CI 1.64–10.6). The majority of participants (54.6%) declared most frequent consumption of low-alcohol drinks (beer, wine) and 21% declared most frequent consumption of spirits. Current drinkers had almost 1.5-fold higher odds of diabetes and cardiovascular diseases (CVD) than never drinkers (OR 1.49, CI 1.03–2.17; OR 1.66, CI 1.27–2.18, respectively). Former drinkers had higher odds for hypertension and CVD than never drinkers (1.73, CI 1.05–2.85; OR 1.76, CI 1.22–2.53, respectively). (4) Conclusions: In our cohort study, we observed several socio-demographic factors differentiating the patterns of alcohol consumption. The preventive programs should focus predominantly on men, people aged <45 years, and those with a higher level of education.

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