scholarly journals Structure Dynamics and Risk Assessment of Water-Energy-Food Nexus: A Water Footprint Approach

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 1187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peng Zhang ◽  
Zihan Xu ◽  
Weiguo Fan ◽  
Jiahui Ren ◽  
Ranran Liu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Socioeconomic Development ◽  
Food System ◽  
Water Footprint ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
Green Water ◽  
Arid Areas ◽  
External Energy ◽  
Important Indicator

The “Water-Energy-Food Nexus” is one of the present research hotspots in the field of sustainable development. Water resources are the key factors that limit local human survival and socioeconomic development in arid areas, and the water footprint is an important indicator for measuring sustainable development. In this study, the structural dynamics and complex relationships of the water-energy-food system in arid areas were analyzed from the perspective of the water footprint, and the risk characteristics were evaluated. The results show that: (1) Agriculture products and livestock products account for the largest water footprints (>90%), which is much higher than the water footprints of energy consumption (<5%). From the water footprint type, the blue water footprint (>50%) > the grey water footprint (20%–30%) > the green water footprint (<20%). (2) Since 2000, especially after 2005, while energy consumption drove rapid economic growth, it also led to the rapid expansion of the water footprint in the Manas River Basin. By 2015, the water deficit was relatively serious, with the surface water resource deficit reaching 16.21 × 108 m3. (3) The water-energy risk coupling degree of the water-energy-food system in this basin is comparatively significant, which means that it is facing the dual pressures of internal water shortage and external energy dependence, and it is vulnerable to global warming and fluctuations in the international and domestic energy markets. Thus, it is necessary to adjust the industrial structure through macroeconomic regulation and control, developing new energy sources, reducing the coupling degree of system risks, and achieving sustainable development.

scholarly journals Food and Agricultural Security: An Introduction to the Special Issue

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (21) ◽  
pp. 12129
Author(s):  
Adesoji Adelaja ◽  
Justin George
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Food Security ◽  
Structural Transformation ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Food System ◽  
Developing Economies ◽  
System Transformation ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Important Indicator ◽  
Wide Range

Food and agricultural security are important elements of sustainable development, especially in developing countries. This is because progress in agriculture is fundamental to the structural transformation of developing economies while food security is an important indicator of progress made in economic development. Indeed, agricultural security and food security are intrinsically linked in the development process, as recognized by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations. The nexus between food and agricultural security is so vast. This special issue only attempts to highlight two important dimensions: (a) the role of resilience in mitigating the impacts of shocks on food and agricultural security and (b) unique challenges faced in sustainable agriculture development and the analysis of best practices. The other nine articles in this special issue cover a wide range, including (a) food security, sustainability and the achievement of SDG goals; resilience and conflict; forced displacement and agriculture; and shocks and structural transformation in sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries; and, beyond SSA, (b) food self-sufficiency, public perceptions about good agricultural practices, environmental impacts of alternate crops, gender issues in agroforestry systems and food system transformation. Collectively, these articles highlight the link between food and agriculture security, environmental sustainability and resilience.

scholarly journals An Improved Forecasting Method and Application of China’s Energy Consumption under the Carbon Peak Target

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8670
Author(s):  
Xiwen Cui ◽  
Shaojun E ◽  
Dongxiao Niu ◽  
Dongyu Wang ◽  
Mingyu Li
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Environmental Pollution ◽  
Optimization Methods ◽  
Support Vector ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Consumption Data ◽  
Forecasting Method ◽  
Forecasting Performance ◽  
Carbon Peak

In the process of economic development, the consumption of energy leads to environmental pollution. Environmental pollution affects the sustainable development of the world, and therefore energy consumption needs to be controlled. To help China formulate sustainable development policies, this paper proposes an energy consumption forecasting model based on an improved whale algorithm optimizing a linear support vector regression machine. The model combines multiple optimization methods to overcome the shortcomings of traditional models. This effectively improves the forecasting performance. The results of the projection of China’s future energy consumption data show that current policies are unable to achieve the carbon peak target. This result requires China to develop relevant policies, especially measures related to energy consumption factors, as soon as possible to ensure that China can achieve its peak carbon targets.

scholarly journals Mechanisms of Environmental Regulation’s Impact on Green Technological Progress—Evidence from China’s Manufacturing Sector

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 1600
Author(s):  
Weijiang Liu ◽  
Mingze Du ◽  
Yuxin Bai
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Technological Change ◽  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Technological Progress ◽  
Manufacturing Industry ◽  
Manufacturing Sector ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Biased Technological Change ◽  
Chinese Manufacturing Industry

As the world’s largest developing country, and as the home to many of the world’s factories, China plays a crucial role in the sustainable development of the world economy regarding environmental protection, energy conservation, and emission reduction issues. Based on the data from 2003–2015, this paper examined the green total factor productivity and the technological progress in the Chinese manufacturing industry. A slack-based measure (SBM) Malmquist productivity index was used to measure the bias of technological change (BTC), input-biased technological change (IBTC), and output-biased technological change (OBTC) by decomposing the technological progress. It also investigated the mechanism of environmental regulation, property right structure, enterprise-scale, energy consumption structure, and other factors on China’s technological progress bias. The empirical results showed the following: (1) there was a bias of technological progress in the Chinese manufacturing industry during the research period; (2) although China’s manufacturing industry’s output tended to become greener, it was still characterized by a preference for overall CO2 output; and (3) the impact of environmental regulations on the Chinese manufacturing industry’s technological progress had a significant threshold effect. The flexible control of environmental regulatory strength will benefit the Chinese manufacturing industry’s technological development. (4) R&D investment, export delivery value, and structure of energy consumption significantly contributed to promoting technological progress. This study provides further insight into the sustainable development of China’s manufacturing sector to promote green-biased technological progress and to achieve the dual goal of environmental protection and healthy economic growth.

scholarly journals Study on Relative Carrying Capacity of Land Resources and Its Zoning in 31 Provinces of China

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1459
Author(s):  
Wei Zhou ◽  
Ayman Elshkaki ◽  
Shuai Zhong ◽  
Lei Shen
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Carrying Capacity ◽  
Coastal Region ◽  
Land Resources ◽  
Parameter Setting ◽  
Single Factor ◽  
Important Indicator ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Land Carrying Capacity ◽  
Human And Nature

Land carrying capacity is an important indicator to quantitatively assess and judge the extents of sustainable economic developing and coexistent harmonizing between human and nature. The significance of land carrying capacity has been highlighted recently by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations, which set clear requirements for arable, construction, and ecological lands. Theories and models of land carrying capacity, however, are suffering from the interference of artificial parameter setting and poor applicability. This paper attempts to overcome these limitations and propose a single factor assessment of the carrying capacity of cultivated land, construction land, and ecological land in terms of the relative carrying capacity from the perspective of a single factor assessment. Through mutual comparison, we found that the deviation caused by simulated parameter setting has been eliminated, and the relative status of each province and/or region in China has been obtained, which could provide a reference for the management and utilization of land resources. We argue that China can achieve basic self-sufficiency in both space capacity and food production without placing pressure on the global sustainable development. The results also indicate that carrying capacity state of the advanced development areas such as the eastern coastal region is relatively poor, while the carrying capacity state of the western region is relatively good.

scholarly journals Evaluation of CO2 emissions and energy use with different container terminal layouts

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Arif Budiyanto ◽  
Muhammad Hanzalah Huzaifi ◽  
Simon Juanda Sirait ◽  
Putu Hangga Nan Prayoga
Keyword(s):  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Container Terminal ◽  
Container Terminals ◽  
Future Planning ◽  
Container Handling

AbstractSustainable development of container terminals is based on energy efficiency and reduction in CO2 emissions. This study estimated the energy consumption and CO2 emissions in container terminals according to their layouts. Energy consumption was calculated based on utility data as well as fuel and electricity consumptions for each container-handling equipment in the container terminal. CO2 emissions were estimated using movement modality based on the number of movements of and distance travelled by each container-handling equipment. A case study involving two types of container terminal layouts i.e. parallel and perpendicular layouts, was conducted. The contributions of each container-handling equipment to the energy consumption and CO2 emissions were estimated and evaluated using statistical analysis. The results of the case study indicated that on the CO2 emissions in parallel and perpendicular layouts were relatively similar (within the range of 16–19 kg/TEUs). These results indicate that both parallel and perpendicular layouts are suitable for future ports based on sustainable development. The results can also be used for future planning of operating patterns and layout selection in container terminals.

scholarly journals Technowomen: Women’s Autonomy and Its Impact on Environmental Quality

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 1611
Author(s):  
Saima Mujeed ◽  
Shuangyan Li ◽  
Musarrat Jabeen ◽  
Abdelmohsen A. Nassani ◽  
Sameh E. Askar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Environmental Quality ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Renewable Energy Consumption ◽  
Women’S Autonomy ◽  
Women's Autonomy ◽  
Role Of Women

The role of women in economic development and the global environment is vital for progressing them towards the United Nations sustainable development goal (SDG-5) that emphasized the need to empower women in every walk of life. The study examines women’s autonomy in the sustainable development agenda under China’s open innovation system from 1975 to 2019. The study employed an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model, vector autoregressive (VAR) Granger causality, and innovation accounting matrix to estimate parameters. The existing data are summarized and collated in the context of China to explain as a correlational study. The results show that women’s autonomy moderated with technology spills over to decrease greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and substantiate the hump-shaped relationship between them. The increased spending on research and development (R&D) activities, patent publications, and renewable energy consumption empowers women to be equipped with the latest sustainable technologies to improve environmental quality. The pollution haven hypothesis verifies a given country, where trade liberalization policies tend to increase polluting industries to set up their plants that engaged in dirty production that exacerbate GHG emissions. The causality estimates confirmed that technological innovations and renewable energy consumption leads to women’s autonomy. In contrast, females’ share in the labor force participation rate leads to an increase in renewable energy consumption. Thus, it is evident that there is a positive role of women in the country’s sustainable development.

scholarly journals Proposal of a Bioregional Strategic Framework for a Sustainable Food System in Sicily

Agronomy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 1546
Author(s):  
Paolo Guarnaccia ◽  
Silvia Zingale ◽  
Alessandro Scuderi ◽  
Ezio Gori ◽  
Vincenzo Santiglia ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Scenario Planning ◽  
Economic Indicators ◽  
Developmental Approach ◽  
Sustainable Food ◽  
Strategic Framework ◽  
Sustainable Food System

The alignment of food systems with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is generally envisaged to make a positive impact on sustainability. This paper outlines some critical environmental and socio-economic indicators for Sicily in order to compare and explore the outcomes of two juxtaposing key drivers in a scenario planning exercise, where the extremities are Industrial versus Regenerative Agriculture/Agroecology and a Proactive versus Reactive government response. The most rational and less risky scenario becomes the most sensible sustainable development option, around which a 2030 vision is projected for a bioregional sustainable food system for Sicily, which is aligned with the SDGs and related policies. To accomplish the 2030 vision, a holistic education-led developmental approach is outlined with a supporting bioregional strategic framework, whose key milestone deliverables are projected through a backcasting process. This paper therefore highlights the importance of consistency and alignment of a development vision with its strategic framework and ensuing implementation, failing which, the holistic bioregional approach is compromised by activities that are shown to negatively impact environmental and socio-economic indicators. For this reason, all public and private sector development plans and associated resources ought to be aligned with a bioregional strategic plan for a sustainable food system for Sicily.

scholarly journals The Impact of Energy Consumption on the Three Pillars of Sustainable Development

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 1372
Author(s):  
Silviu Nate ◽  
Yuriy Bilan ◽  
Danylo Cherevatskyi ◽  
Ganna Kharlamova ◽  
Oleksandr Lyakh ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Energy Density ◽  
Ecological Footprint ◽  
Policy Design ◽  
Disability Adjusted Life ◽  
The Social ◽  
Low Efficiency ◽  
Disability Adjusted Life Year ◽  
The Impact

The paper analyzes the impact of energy consumption on the three pillars of sustainable development in 74 countries. The main methodological challenge in this research is the choice of a single integral indicator for assessing the social component of sustainable development. Disability-adjusted life year (DALY), ecological footprint, and GDP (Gross domestic product) are used to characterize the social, ecological, and economical pillars. The concept of physics, namely the concept of density (specific gravity), is used. It characterizes the ratio of the mass of a substance to its volume, i.e., reflects the saturation of a certain volume with this substance. Thus, to assess the relationship between energy consumption and the three foundations of sustainable development, it is proposed to determine the energy density of the indicators DALY, the ecological footprint, and GDP. The reaction to changes in energy consumption is described by the elasticity of energy density functions, calculated for each of the abovementioned indicators. The state of the social pillar is mostly dependent on energy consumption. As for the changes in the ecological pillar, a 1% reduction in energy consumption per capita gives only a 0.6% ecological footprint reduction, which indicates a low efficiency of reducing energy consumption policy and its danger for the social pillar. The innovative aspect of the research is to apply a cross-disciplinary approach and a calculative technique to identify the impact that each of the pillars of sustainable development imposes on energy policy design. The policy of renewable energy expansion is preferable for all sustainable development pillars.

scholarly journals TOPOI RESOURCES: Quantification and Assessment of Global Warming Potential and Land-Uptake of Residential Buildings in Settlement Types along the Urban–Rural Gradient—Opportunities for Sustainable Development

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 4099
Author(s):  
Ann-Kristin Mühlbach ◽  
Olaf Mumm ◽  
Ryan Zeringue ◽  
Oskars Redbergs ◽  
Elisabeth Endres ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Global Warming Potential ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Residential Building ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Residential Building Stock ◽  
Urban Rural

The METAPOLIS as the polycentric network of urban–rural settlement is undergoing constant transformation and urbanization processes. In particular, the associated imbalance of the shrinkage and growth of different settlement types in relative geographical proximity causes negative effects, such as urban sprawl and the divergence of urban–rural lifestyles with their related resource, land and energy consumption. Implicitly related to these developments, national and global sustainable development goals for the building sector lead to the question of how a region can be assessed without detailed research and surveys to identify critical areas with high potential for sustainable development. In this study, the TOPOI method is used. It classifies settlement units and their interconnections along the urban–rural gradient, in order to quantify and assess the land-uptake and global warming potential driven by residential developments. Applying standard planning parameters in combination with key data from a comprehensive life cycle assessment of the residential building stock, a detailed understanding of different settlement types and their associated resource and energy consumption is achieved.

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