Enhancing the adaptive capacity for urban sustainability: A bottom-up approach to understanding the urban social system in China

The impact of public demands on local environmental governance performance: Evidence from civil environmental complaints placed on leaders at different government levels in China

The joint participation of multiple subjects is crucial for environmental governance. Using panel data for 273 Chinese cities during 2013-2019, this study investigates the impact and mechanism of public demands on environmental pollution. The results demonstrate that public demands measured by the number of environmental complaints placed on government leaders significantly reduce environmental pollution. Furthermore, increases in the rate and speed of government responses improve the effect of public demands on environmental governance. Public demands placed on provincial leaders reduce local environmental pollution to a greater extent than public demands placed on prefectural and county leaders. Province-level governments are more willing to consider public opinions and attach more importance to environmental governance; Prefecture-level governments prioritize province-level governments' attention to the environment when implementing environmental governance. Moreover, strong political ties between provincial and prefectural leaders and long tenures among prefectural leaders strengthen the pollution reduction effect of public demands placed on provincial leaders. The reduction effect of environmental complaints on pollution emission is more significant in cities with high level of Internet construction and environmental disclosure. Our results illustrate the role of public demands in environmental governance, offering a reference for developing effective environmental policies.

Data-driven evaluation framework for the effectiveness of rural vitalization in China: an empirical case study of Hubei Province

Rural vitalization (RV) has attracted more and more attention in China, especially since the Rural Vitalization Strategy (RVS) was proposed to restrict rural decline in 2017. The evaluation of RV is an effective means to objectively identify the characteristics and problems of rural development, so exploring scientific and rational evaluation methods is important for sustainable rural development. Therefore, this study builds a data-driven evaluation framework from a "bottom-up" perspective, and selects Hubei Province as the object to evaluate the effectiveness of RV. The evaluation index system is formed based on the concept and connotation of RV, which contains six dimensions, namely thriving businesses (TB), pleasant living environments (PLE), social etiquette and civility (SEC), effective governance (EG), living in prosperity (LP), and organization system (OS). The empirical results indicate that there is a low level of variation of the total scores but an obvious disparity in the dimensional scores in 13 prefecture-level and 83 county-level regions. At county-level, the regional development stage has an impact on the effectiveness of RV, and regions with a higher economy or endowed with better resources perform better. The results of spatial analysis further reveal that there is regional agglomeration as well as differences in various dimensions, and regions with characteristic industries or policy support perform better. Compared with the traditional evaluation method, differentiated evaluation objectives and diversified data are considered in the evaluation process of this study. The results and discussion shown in this study could provide empirical evidence for policymakers to effectively promote RV in the future.

Forecasting sustainability of supply chains in the circular economy context: a dynamic network data envelopment analysis and artificial neural network approach

Purpose

The objective of this research is to put forward a novel closed-loop circular economy (CE) approach to forecast the sustainability of supply chains (SCs). We provide a practical and real-world CE framework to improve and fill the current knowledge gap in evaluating sustainability of SCs. Besides, we aim to propose a real-life managerial forecasting approach to alert the decision-makers on the future unsustainability of SCs.

Design/methodology/approach

It is needed to develop an integrated mathematical model to deal with the complexity of sustainability and CE criteria. To address this necessity, for the first time, network data envelopment analysis (NDEA) is incorporated into the dynamic data envelopment analysis (DEA) and artificial neural network (ANN). In general, methodologically, the paper uses a novel hybrid decision-making approach based on a combination of dynamic and network DEA and ANN models to evaluate sustainability of supply chains using environmental, social, and economic criteria based on real life data and experiences of knowledge-based companies so that the study has a good adaptation with the scope of the journal.

Findings

A practical CE evaluation framework is proposed by incorporating recyclable undesirable outputs into the models and developing a new hybrid “dynamic NDEA” and “ANN” model. Using ANN, the sustainability trend of supply chains for future periods is forecasted, and the benchmarks are proposed. We deal with the undesirable recycling outputs, inputs, desirable outputs and carry-overs simultaneously.

Originality/value

We propose a novel hybrid dynamic NDEA and ANN approach for forecasting the sustainability of SCs. To do so, for the first time, we incorporate a practical CE concept into the NDEA. Applying the hybrid framework provides us a new ranking approach based on the sustainability trend of SCs, so that we can forecast unsustainable supply chains and recommend preventive solutions (benchmarks) to avoid future losses. A practicable case study is given to demonstrate the real-life applications of the proposed method.

A Bibliometric and Visual Analysis of Environmental Behavior Research

Environmental behavior has become one of the most important research areas in the field of sustainable development in recent years. Based on 818 papers on environmental behavior in the Web of Science database from 2002 to 2020, this paper uses CiteSpace software to analyze the trends in publication, subject categories, influential authors and journals, countries, and institutional collaborations. The results show that environmental behavior research has steadily increased over the past 19 years and has gradually achieved diversity and intersection in research subjects. The research on environmental behavior is mainly distributed in the United States, China, and European countries, with the United States being the largest contributor in the field and at the center of the institutional collaboration network. The present research hotspots are as follows: the concept of environmental behavior, factors affecting environmental behavior, the dimension division of environmental behavior, and the construction of a sustainable environmental behavior model. The sustainable development, predictive environmental behavior indicators, factors that affect environmental behavior, and the construction of theoretical models of environmental behavior will become future research trend.

Environment, Business, and Health Care Prevail: A Comprehensive, Systematic Review of System Dynamics Application Domains

System dynamics, as a methodology for analyzing and understanding various types of systems, has been applied in research for several decades. We undertook a review to identify the latest application domains and map the realm of system dynamics. The systematic review was conducted according to the PRISMA methodology. We analyzed and categorized 212 articles and found that the vast majority of studies belong to the fields of business administration, health, and environmental research. Altogether, 20 groups of modeling and simulation topics can be recognized. System dynamics is occasionally supported by other modeling methodologies such as the agent-based modeling approach. There are issues related to published studies mostly associated with testing of validity and reasonability of models, leading to the development of predictions that are not grounded in verified models. This study contributes to the development of system dynamics as a methodology that can offer new ideas, highlight limitations, or provide analogies for further research in various research disciplines.

Multiple Dimensions of Smart Cities’ Infrastructure: A Review

In recent years, there has been significant focus on smart cities, on how they operate and develop, and on their technical and social challenges. The importance of infrastructure as a major pillar of support in cities, in addition to the rapid developments in smart city research, necessitate an up-to-date review of smart cities’ infrastructure issues and challenges. Traditionally, a majority of studies have focused on traffic control and management, transport network design, smart grid initiatives, IoT (Internet of Things) integration, big data, land use development, and how urbanization processes impact land use in the long run. The work presented herein proposes a novel review framework that analyzes how smart city infrastructure is related to the urbanization process while presenting developments in IoT sensor networks, big data analysis of the generated information, and green construction. A classification framework was proposed to give insights on new initiatives regarding smart city infrastructure through answering the following questions: (i) What are the various dimensions on which smart city infrastructure research focuses? (ii) What are the themes and classes associated with these dimensions? (iii) What are the main shortcomings in current approaches, and what would be a good research agenda for the future? A bibliometric analysis was conducted, presenting cluster maps that can be used to understand different research trends and refine further searches. A bibliographic analysis was then followed, presenting a review of the most relevant studies over the last five years. The method proposed serves to stress where future research into understanding smart systems, their implementation and functionality would be best directed. This research concluded that future research on the topic should conceptualize smart cities as an emergent socio-techno phenomenon.

How to Create Walking Friendly Cities. A Multi-Criteria Analysis of the Central Open Market Area of Rijeka

Current mobility strategies tend to pursue sustainable solutions with low environmental and economic impact, such as the disincentive to the use of private vehicles. Mobility on foot is among the most advantageous forms for short distances, especially if different technological and infrastructural solutions are inserted in the urban context such as underpasses that limit the likely conflicts with motor vehicles. These solutions, however, are not easily perceived as positive because people often do not like to change their usual routes or because they feel psychological discomfort when they pass through closed places. This research work focuses on the evaluation of the benefits of including a small underpass in the city of Rijeka, Croatia and through an Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), a multi-criteria analysis, it was possible to prioritize a number of decision-making alternatives, related to qualitative and quantitative evaluations, otherwise not directly comparable, and combining multidimensional measurement scales into a single priority scale. This analysis allows to provide cues for local and non-local urban planning, encouraging through the participatory form an active comparison between the population and local authorities and at the same time allows to assess which multidisciplinary processes (psychological/engineering) are possible to put in place to encourage the research on pedestrian behavior.

An alternative method for analyzing dimensional interactions of urban carrying capacity: Case study of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area

Most previous studies on comprehensive urban carrying capacity (UCC) have estimated UCC levels and comparatively analyzed the heterogeneity of the sample cities. Very few researchers have focused on the interaction effects between different categories of UCC based on synergetic theory. To fill this gap, we constructed a panel vector autoregressive (PVAR) model to study 11 cities in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area from 2000 to 2016. The ultimate goal of this study is to improve comprehensive UCC levels by forming a virtuous circle of mutual reinforcement between the four types of carrying capacity. To do so, the interaction mechanisms of the four subsystems are examined. Results show that (a) only transportation and social carrying capacity had causality between them as per the Granger causality test; (b) all four carrying capacities can support themselves (i.e., the development of economic conditions helps to improve social carrying capacity and the improvement of social carrying capacity helps to improve environmental carrying capacity); and (c) both the four carrying capacities are mostly affected by their own fluctuations. Overall transportation carrying capacity is the most important driving force among the four subsystems that interact with each other; followed by economic carrying capacity, which has promotion effect on the social and environmental aspects; social carrying capacity poses impact on the environmental dimension but not vice versa. Policy suggestions and future research directions are highlighted in the final section.

The concept of a participatory approach to water management on a reservoir in response to wicked problems

Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) in the social, economic and environmental aspect is widely accepted although still represents a big challenge for its implementation in global, regional and local scales. This is particularly important in the situation of new investments. In the case of already existing hydro-technical facilities, which were built at the end of the nineties of the last century, water management takes into account only the ecological awareness for their design and social participation is limited to acceptance of the local community. The Mściwojów retention reservoir analysed in the article is an example of an object whose project included ecological solutions aimed at ensuring high water quality, and its construction was approved and supported by the local community. At present, the reservoir does not function in accordance with the adopted assumptions, and water management requires the implementation of system solutions that take into account contradicting expectations of users and stakeholders of the reservoir. The current situation can be categorized as a wicked problem. The article presents a proposal to solve the situation on the basis of a participatory approach involving stakeholders through social learning as a part of the reservoir management system. The system approach was developed based on the principles of Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) and 10 Steps Planning Processing by Wilhite while using the causal loop diagrams (CLD). The result is an organizational model of the reservoir management structure and framework methodology for building solution scenarios. The key assumption of the proposed approach is the cyclicality of activities as part of the management process taking into account changes in the reservoir system and its settings in the social, economic and environmental aspects.

Human Health-Environment Interaction Science: An emerging research paradigm

During recent decades, the growing interactions between human well-being and the environment have led to the development of new research paradigms. A number of disciplines have recognized the importance of the human-environment relationship in all aspects of human life from an economic, ecological, social and political perspective. In conformity with this trend, we conducted a bibliometric review of scientific publications on the interactions between two main research domains: human-centered and environmental-centered sciences. The aim is to provide a temporal and spatial perspective on how these research domains have paired up and co-evolved along a common pathway towards a new research paradigm, named Human Health-Environment Interaction Science (HHEIS). Our results revealed a constant growth over time in the scientific production concerning HHEIS. The network and cluster analyses showed a progressive overlapping of keywords among studies published in environmental and human health journals to a match of principal keywords. As a statistical indicator of this trend, the similarity index showed an increase in the number of keywords for both research domains. In terms of country productivity, the US, UK and China are in the lead, while EU countries are the most interconnected. Our review demonstrates the existence of HEIS as a comprehensive paradigm encompassing research findings with implications for human and environmental interaction. An overview of the history of HHEIS and the implications of current EU research-funding initiatives have been provided.

Coupling Coordinated Development and Exploring Its Influencing Factors in Nanchang, China: From the Perspectives of Land Urbanization and Population Urbanization

The coordination relationship between land urbanization and population urbanization is crucial for achieving sustainable development under economic transition. Moreover, the balance between land urbanization and population urbanization is essential to guarantee the urbanization process of an entire city. This paper empirically analyzes the interaction between land urbanization and population urbanization in Nanchang from 2002 to 2017 based on the coupling coordination model (CCM). The impacts of the coordination degree on coordinated development are quantified by multivariate linear regression (MLR). The results show the following: (1) The indices of land urbanization and population urbanization in Nanchang showed an upward trend, and therefore the coordination degree in Nanchang increased significantly from 2002 to 2017. (2) The coordinated development of urbanization underwent two stages: disordered and moderately disordered. (3) The urban population proportion and the supporting capability of agricultural production had a positive impact on coordinated development. Meanwhile, the results also show that per capita education expenditures and the per capita public green area had negative impacts on the coordination degree, while economic development and the urban industrial structure were positive contributors to the coordination degree. Finally, this paper proposes that policies should be formulated to achieve coordinated development of urbanization. It can be concluded that the results regarding coordinated development of urbanization can help decision makers formulate effective measures to achieve coordinated development in the future.