Sustainable Water and Sanitation in Sierra Leone: Impact evaluation of the ‘Improved WASH Services in WAU and WAR Districts’ project

Between October 2016 and March 2019, the Freetown WASH Consortium, led by Oxfam with Against Hunger, Concern Worldwide and Save the Children as members, carried out the 'Improved WASH Services in Western Area Urban (WAU) and Western Area Rural (WAR) Districts' project. Broadly, the project aimed to improve the availability, accessibility, affordability and sustainability of integrated water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services, in alignment with the Government of Sierra Leone's national agenda on Ebola recovery and increased preparedness against possible future outbreaks. This Effectiveness Review evaluates the success of this project to increase the sustainability of water and sanitation systems and services. Using a quasi-experimental, mixed method evaluation design, impact is assessed among individuals, households and communities in intervention and comparison areas. Community-level factors contributing to better individual- and household-level outcomes are explored. Find out more by reading the full report now.

Development Zones and Their Surrounding Host Cities in China: Isolation and Mutually Beneficial Interactions

The construction of development zones is an important strategic measure for China to attract foreign investment and open up more extensively to the outside world; for this reason, such zones are also of great significance to China’s regional development. Although the economic effects of development zones have received extensive attention from scholars, the interaction between the development zone and the host city that surrounds it has, to date, remained unexamined. To fill this gap, this research constructed a panel measurement analysis framework and selected 46 of China’s national development zones established from 2004 to 2018 as study samples and used Granger causality test method to reveal the causal relationship between the total factor productivity of the development zones and their surrounding host cities. The consequences exhibited a long-term causality between the total factor productivity of the development zones and that of the host cities in all the panels. Short-term causality, however, was only identified in the eastern and western area panels. The development zone is shown to significantly promote the development of its host city, albeit with a certain lag effect; conversely, the support function provided by the host city to the development zone was found to remain weak. Our research results provide a new perspective on realizing a mutually beneficial interaction between development zones and their host cities.

What Role Does Religion Have in Shaping Human Consumption?

Religious belief, as an informal social institution, has a significant impact on all aspects of human civilization. Previous literature has studied the effects of religious belief on economic growth, income, education, etc. Therefore, using the case of China as an example, this paper aims to investigate the effect of religious belief on human consumption. An empirical review of cross-sectional data from China’s 28 provinces reveals that religious belief has a detrimental impact on human consumption. Meanwhile, two-stage least squares and substituting the dependent variable (hc2) are employed to perform robustness tests. The new results also support the conclusion that religious belief negatively affects human consumption. In addition, this paper also discusses the heterogeneous effect of religious belief on human consumption in terms of geographical location, income level, and marketization degree. The results demonstrate the existence of the heterogeneous effect. Specifically, in the western area, low income level, and low marketization degree, religious belief negatively affects human consumption the most. On the contrary, in the eastern area, high income level, and high marketization degree, religious belief negatively affects human consumption the least.

Materials and Tools across Volcanoes: Exploitation of Georesources in Piano dei Cardoni (Ustica, Italy) during Prehistory

The paper aims at merging the first results from the analyses of the georesources exploited in the site of Piano dei Cardoni (Ustica island, Italy) during the Neolithic phases of its occupation (Middle-Late Neolithic, 4.7-4.2 ka cal BC). Grinding tools consist of a very varied typology of local volcanic rocks, easy to collect and available very close to the investigated site. A selection of shapes and lithology is applied to reach the best performance of the tools. The elevated number of grinders, pestles, mortars testify to an intense activity of food/plant processing in the site. The absence of chert or obsidian resources on the island pushed the human communities to import such raw materials from the Aeolian islands and probably from the north-western area of Palermo. Pumice is collected on the same island, probably due to the local availability and its good quality. Similarly, local clay resources are used for the manufacture of ceramics, mostly burnished and incised wares. Ustica was therefore almost autonomous for the exploitation of resources, with volcanic rocks readily available in abundance and with the most significant exception being chert and obsidian. This last one probably imported and worked on the island and then moved towards North-Western Sicily.

Microzonation of Probolinggo Fault Using Microtremor as an Effort for Earthquake Disaster Mitigation

Earthquake can be caused by several things, one of which is due to an active fault. To mitigate earthquake disasters that can be caused by the Probolinggo Fault, measurement of the microtremor geophysical method is carried out to analyze seismic vulnerability. In this study, the microtremor measurements were carried out on 30 measurement points. The data obtained from measurements are then processed using EasyHVSR software to obtain natural frequency (f0) and natural amplification (A0) values. This value is then used to create a microtremor microzonation map, which is seismic vulnerability index, based on natural frequency and amplification . it founded that low natural frequency mostly founded on eastern of measurement area, caused by thick sedimentary from Lamongan volcanic. High amplification mostly founded from middle to western area, and high seismic vulnerability index founded on western of measurement area, include Maron and Krucil Sub-district. It means seismic wave can very destructive on those area.

Geomorphology, Mineralogy, and Geochronology of Mare Basalts and Non-Mare Materials around the Lunar Crisium Basin

The Nectarian-aged Crisium basin exhibits an extremely thin crust and complicated lunar geological history. This large multi-ring impact basin is characterized by prolonged lunar volcanism ranging from the Imbrian age to the Eratosthenian period, forming the high-Ti mare unit, low-Ti mare basalts, and very low-Ti mare unit. We produced an updated geological map of the Crisium basin and defined four mare units (Im1: 3.74 Ga; Im2: 3.49 Ga; Im3: 3.56 Ga; EIm: 2.49 Ga) in terms of distinct composition and mineralogy. Olivine was widely determined in the Ti-rich Im1, implying the hybridization source in the lunar mantle with the occurrence of small-scale convective overturn. The major phase of low-Ti basaltic volcanism occurred c.a. 3.5 Ga, forming Im2 and Im3 in the western area. The youngest mare unit (EIm) has slight variations of pyroxene compositions, implying a decrease of calcic content of basaltic volcanisms with time. Later, distal material transports from large impact events in highlands could complicate the mixing of local mare basalts in the Copernicus age, especially the Im3 unit. The identified olivine-bearing outcrops and widely Mg-rich materials (Mg# > 70, where Mg# = molar 100 × Mg/(Mg + Fe)) in the western highlands, assumed to be the occurrence of the Mg-suite candidates, require future lunar exploration missions to validate.

Proposing the Optimum Withdrawing Scenarios to Provide the Western Coastal Area of Port Said, Egypt, with Sufficient Groundwater with Less Salinity

Recently, groundwater resources in Egypt have become one of the important sources to meet human needs and activities, especially in coastal areas such as the western area of Port Said, where seawater desalination cannot be used due to the problem of oil spill and the reliance upon groundwater resources. Thus, the purpose of the study is the sustainable management of the groundwater resources in the coastal aquifer entailing groundwater abstraction. In this regard, the Visual MODFLOW and SEAWAT codes were used to simulate groundwater flow and seawater intrusion in the study area for 50 years (from 2018 to 2068) to predict the drawdown, as well as the salinity distribution due to the pumping of the wells on the groundwater coastal aquifer based on field investigation data and numerical modelling. Different well scenarios were used, such as the change in well abstraction rate, the different numbers of abstraction wells, the spacing between the abstraction wells and the change in screen depth in abstraction. The recommended scenarios were selected after comparing the predicted drawdown and salinity results for each scenario to minimize the seawater intrusion and preserve these resources from degradation.

Artificial cultivation of a novel wild strain of Lepista sordida (Sowerby) Pat from south west China

A novel wild strain of Lepista sordida mushroom was collected from a soybean field in Liujiaba at Dazhou district of south western area of China in 2015.The morphological description and molecular identification were conducted to confirm the species. In the present study, optimization was carried out from mycelial growth and fruit body production. For DAAS-E70, the best growth rate was obtained using yeast malt extract, pH 6.0 and temperature 25°C. The wheat grain mushroom spawn was used for upscaling of the mycelium to be used for fruiting body production. In the field experiments, the average biological efficiency of DAAS-E70 was higher than that of Jilin-1, in which, DAAS-E70 accounting for 41.22% of the average biological efficiency, while the Jilin-1 was 35.02%. The stable biological efficiency of DAAS-E70 in different environments and seasons showed that the DAAS-E70 could be used for its commercial cultivation and could provide a new reference for its artificial domestication. Bangladesh J. Bot. 50(3): 813-818, 2021 (September) Special

Using Smart Card Data of Metro Passengers to Unveil the Urban Spatial Structure: A Case Study of Xi’an, China

This study adopted smart card data collected from metro systems to identify city centers and illustrate how city centers interacted with other regions. A case study of Xi’an, China, was given. Specifically, inflow and outflow patterns of metro passengers were characterized to measure the degree of population agglomeration of an area, i.e., the centricity of an area. On this basis, in order to overcome the problem of determining the boundaries of the city centers, Moran’s I was adopted to examine the spatial correlation between the inflow and outflow of ridership of adjacent areas. Three residential centers and two employee centers were identified, which demonstrated the polycentricity of urban structure of Xi’an. With the identified polycenters, the dominant spatial connections with each city center were investigated through a multiple linkage analysis method. The results indicated that there were significant connections between residential centers and employee centers. Moreover, metro passengers (commuters mostly) flowing into the identified employee centers during morning peak-hours mainly came from the northern and western area of Xi’an. This was consistent with the interpretation of current urban planning, which validated the effectiveness of the proposed methods. Policy implications were provided for the transport sector and public transport operators.