Environmental Quality Requirements Research Articles

The role of policy and regulation in promoting green buildings

Green buildings play a crucial role in sustainable development by reducing energy consumption, minimizing environmental impact, and enhancing occupant health and well-being. This review explores the role of policy and regulation in promoting green buildings, highlighting the importance of government intervention in driving sustainable building practices. Government policies and regulations play a pivotal role in shaping the adoption of green building practices. Through a combination of mandates, incentives, and standards, governments can encourage the construction and renovation of buildings that prioritize energy efficiency, water conservation, and environmental sustainability. Mandatory building codes and standards are among the most effective tools governments use to promote green buildings. These codes set minimum requirements for energy performance, water efficiency, and indoor environmental quality, ensuring that new constructions and major renovations meet established sustainability criteria. In addition to mandatory standards, governments also use financial incentives to encourage green building practices. These incentives may include tax credits, grants, or subsidies for building owners and developers who incorporate sustainable design features or achieve green building certifications. Furthermore, governments can influence the market through procurement policies that prioritize green buildings for public projects. By leading by example, governments can create a ripple effect in the private sector, encouraging more developers and building owners to embrace sustainable building practices. Overall, the role of policy and regulation in promoting green buildings is essential for advancing sustainable development goals. By setting clear standards, providing incentives, and leading by example, governments can create an environment where green buildings are the norm rather than the exception, leading to a more sustainable built environment for future generations.

Single and mixture toxicity of cadmium and copper to swim bladder in early life stages of Japanese medaka (Oryzias latipes).

Toxicity observed in aquatic ecosystems often cannot be explained by the action of a single pollutant. Likewise, evaluation standards formulated by a single effect cannot truly reflect the environmental quality requirements. The study of mixtures is needed to provide environmental relevance and knowledge of combined toxicity. In this study, the embryos of Japanese medaka (Oryzias latipes) were treated with individual and binary mixture of copper (Cu) and cadmium (Cd) until 12days post-fertilization (dpf). Hatching, mortality, development, histology and gene expression were assessed. Our results showed that the highest concentration mixture of Cd (10mg/L) and Cu (1mg/L) affected survival, hatching time and hatching success. Occurrence of uninflated swim bladder was the highest (value) with exposure to 10mg/L Cd. Swim bladder was commonly over-inflated in a mixture (0.1mg/L Cd + 1.0mg/L Cu) exposure. Individuals exposed to the mixture (0.1 Cd + 1.0 Cu mg/L) showed up to a 7.69% increase in swim bladder area compared to the control group. The mixtures containing 0.1 or 10mg/L Cd, each with 1.0mg/L Cu resulted in significantly increased of Pbx1b expression, higher than any Cd or Cu alone (p < 0.01). In the co-exposure group (0.1/10 Cd + 1.0 Cu mg/L), Pbx1b expression was found at 12dpf but not 7dpf in controls. Higher concentrations of Cd may progressively reduce Pbx1b expression, potentially explaining why 75% of individuals in the 10mg/L Cd group failed to inflate their swim bladders. Additionally, the swim bladder proved to be a valuable bio-indicator for biological evaluation.

Fluidization-melting characteristics of fly ash from municipal solid waste incineration

Fly ash (FA) from municipal solid waste incineration contains hazardous substances such as dioxins, furans, and heavy metals. Melting FA has proved to be an effective method for reducing volume and mass, while also rendering the waste harmless. However, during the melting process, the addition of a fluxing agent with calorific value is currently necessary to increase melting capacity and reduce energy consumption, which presents a challenge. To tackle this issue, a fluidization-melting technology for a fuel/FA mixture is proposed, wherein a fuel source is employed in the melting process, producing ash that can serve as a fluxing agent. To test this approach, rice husk (RH) was utilized as fuel in a small-scale fluidization-melting test. The objective of this study was to examine the operation parameters of the platform and the characteristics of the resulting product, and to evaluate the harm reduction effect of the slag and its potential for resource utilization. The operating temperature was set at 690 °C in the thermal modification unit and at 1450 °C in the melting furnace, resulting in stable operation and continuous liquid slag discharge. The leaching toxicity of heavy metals in the obtained slag was lower than the standard limit, achieving harmless disposal of FA. However, the resource utilization potential of the obtained slag is limited due to its failure to meet the criteria of vitrified substance and environmental quality requirements. These limitations could be addressed by promoting the combustion of carbon in the melting furnace and accelerating the cooling rate of the slag in the quenching unit.

Assessing Influence Mechanism of Management Overconfidence, Corporate Environmental Responsibility and Corporate Value: The Moderating Effect of Government Environmental Governance and Media Attention.

China's economic development has gradually entered a new period of slowing down and changing from quantity to quality, which has put forward higher requirements for environmental quality. How to better fulfill environmental responsibilities and realize a virtuous circle of "environmental protection for development" and a value growth model are essential issues that enterprises should consider and solve. Overconfidence, as one of the significant psychological characteristics of management, has caused more and more attention to its economic consequences. In order to clarify the internal logical relationship between the two and help enterprises optimize their environmental responsibility decisions, the paper is based on upper echelon theory and stakeholder theory. It focuses on the micro-situation of the corporate, empirically testing the influence of management overconfidence on corporate environmental responsibility by using the OLS regression analysis method, taking the manufacturing listed companies in the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchange of China from 2010 to 2017 as the research sample. The study discusses the moderating effect of government environmental governance and media attention on the relationship between management overconfidence and corporate environmental responsibility. The empirical results show a negative correlation between management overconfidence and corporate environmental responsibility. Both government environmental governance and media attention will weaken the negative correlation between management overconfidence and corporate environmental responsibility. Further research finds that management overconfidence has a weakening effect on corporate value, and corporate environmental responsibility plays a partial mediating role between management overconfidence and corporate value.

The significance of resource recycling for coking wastewater treatment: based on environmental and economic life cycle assessment

The sustainability of the coking industry is supported by reasonable production profit and environmental quality requirements. The traditional measures substantially increased the related costs for enterprises to reach standards. This paper aims to develop a comprehensive cost combined environmental impact assessment method that is necessary for the analysis of wastewater treatment systems. Typical three coking wastewater treatment processes in China were evaluated. Results showed that eutrophication dominantly contributed to the overall environmental effect. Improving effluent quality could significantly reduce the total environmental impact. In terms of an economic perspective, the price of raw materials was the main factor that affected the operating cost of comprehensive treatment. Based on subsystem analysis, the pretreatment stage accounted for the majority of environmental and cost burdens, respectively reaching 64%–78% and 64%–86%. Optimizing the pretreatment process by enhancing the efficiency of high concentration raw material recovery and substituting toxic raw materials for extractant could reduce the environmental impact and economic cost by 43.8% and 57%, respectively, which was an effective way to improve the potential performance of coking wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs).

Technical Investigation on the Application of Ultrafiltration Membrane Process in the Upgrading and Reconstruction Project of Urban Sewage Plant

In recent years, for environmental quality requirements of our country continue to increase, the effluent quality of urban sewage treatment plants has improved correspondingly. A sewage treatment plants in Zhonglou District, Changzhou City originally used the traditional AAO treatment process, complying with the first level B standard of “Discharge standard of pollutants for municipal wastewater treatment plant”(GB18918-2002). However, according to the newest requirements of discharge standard, this sewage plant needs to be upgraded, improving to the first level a standard. The main measures include transforming the former treatment process into a two-stage A/O process (A-O-A-O), which focuses on nitrogen removal to strengthen the nitrogen removal capacity; adding a ultrafiltration membrane system to increase the removal rate of effluent SS and the refractory organic matter. After the completion of the upgrading project, the sewage treatment plant has been operating stably for 12 months. The effluent quality is stable and up to standards, meeting the design standards. This example of transformation can provide a technical reference for the transforming and upgrading projects of other sewage treatment plants, which share the same type of tight land use.

Study on Subjective Evaluation of Acoustic Environment in Urban Open Space Based on "Effective Characteristics".

With the continuous expansion of urban scale with dense population and traffic and the gradual improvement of residents’ requirements for environmental quality, the traditional evaluation method relying on acoustic energy is not enough to reflect the feelings of urban crowds about acoustic environment quality. The acoustic environment quality evaluation method based on human subjective perception has gradually become one of the research focuses in the field of environmental noise control. In recent years, various subjective and objective acoustic characteristic parameters have been introduced into the study of acoustic environment assessment in the global literature. However, the extraction of “effective characteristics” from a large number of physical and psychoacoustic characteristics contained in acoustic signals and the creation of a scientific and efficient subjective evaluation model have always been key technical problems in the field of acoustic environment evaluation. Based on subjective human perceptions, the overall acoustic environment quality evaluation of urban open spaces is studied in this paper. Based on the “effective characteristic” parameters and the subjective characteristic proposed in the previous research, including equivalent continuous A-weighted sound pressure level (LA), the difference between median noise and ambient background noise (L50 − L90), Sharpness (Sh), as well as satisfaction (Sat), the multivariable linear regression algorithm is used to further study the intrinsic correlation between the proposed “effective characteristics” and subjective perception. Then, a satisfaction evaluation model of the acoustic environment based on “effective characteristics” is built in this paper. Furthermore, the soundwalk evaluation experiment and the MATLAB numerical simulation experiment are carried out, which verify that the prediction accuracy of the proposed model is more than 92%, the consistency of satisfaction level is more than 88%, as well as the changes in the values of Sh and L50 − L90 have a significant impact on the satisfaction prediction of the proposed model. It shows that the proposed “effective characteristics” more comprehensively describe the quality level of the regional acoustic environment in urban open space compared with a single LA index, and the proposed acoustic environment satisfaction evaluation model based on “effective characteristics” has significant accuracy superiority and regional applicability.

Import competition and the improvement in pollutant discharge from heterogeneous enterprises: Evidence from China

With the deepening of trade liberalization, import competition has become increasingly fierce in China. In addition, the Chinese government has been setting higher requirements for environmental quality. Corporate pollutant emission behavior is a subject of broad concern. This paper uses panel data from 2000 to 2007 to study the impact of import competition on the pollution emission intensity of heterogeneous manufacturing enterprises. The main results are as follows. (1) Import competition can inhibit the SO2 emission intensity of high-productivity manufacturing enterprises. The conclusion remains robust after a series of robustness tests. (2) Heterogeneity analysis shows that import competition significantly impacts corporate pollution emission behavior in eastern regions and frontier industries. (3) The reallocation effect and the technology effect are the main channels through which import competition improves the pollution emissions of high-productivity manufacturing enterprises. This paper provides a more comprehensive perspective for studying the impact of import competition and proposes a new direction for enterprise pollution control.

Optimal Allocation of Water Resources and Eco-Compensation Mechanism Model Based on the Interval-Fuzzy Two-Stage Stochastic Programming Method for Tingjiang River.

In this work, based on the upper line of water resources utilization and the bottom line of water environmental quality of “Three Lines, Single Project”, a fuzzy optimization method was introduced into the Tingjiang River water resources optimal allocation and eco-compensation mechanism model, which is based on the interval two-stage (ITS) stochastic programming method. In addition, a Tingjiang River water resources allocation and eco-compensation mechanism model based on the interval fuzzy two-stage (IFTS) optimization method was also constructed. The objective functions of both models were to maximize the economic benefits of the Tingjiang River. The available water resources in the basin, the water environmental quality requirements, and regional development requirements were used as constraints, and under the five hydrological scenarios of extreme dryness, dryness, normal flow, abundance, and extreme abundance, the water resources allocation plan of various sectors (industry, municipal, agriculture, and ecology) in the Tingjiang River was optimized, and an eco-compensation mechanism was developed. In this work, the uncertainty of the maximum available water resources in each region and the whole basin was considered. If the maximum available water resources were too high, it would lead to a large waste of water resources, whereas if the maximum available water resources were too low, regional economic development would be limited. Therefore, the above two parameters were set as fuzzy parameters in the optimization model construction in this work. The simulation results from the IFTS model showed that the amount of water available in the river basin directly affects the water usage by various departments, thereby affecting the economic benefits of the river basin and the amount of eco-compensation paid by the downstream areas. The average economic benefit of the Tingjiang River after the optimization of the IFTS model simulation was [3868.51, 5748.99] × 108 CNY, which is an increase of [1.67%, 51.9%] compared to the economic benefit of the basin announced by the government in 2018. Compared to the ITS model, the economic benefit interval of the five hydrological scenarios of extreme dryness, dryness, normal flow, abundance, and extreme abundance was reduced by 28.54%, 44.9%, 31.49%, 40.37%, and 36.43%, respectively, which can improve the economic benefits of the basin and provide more accurate decision-making schemes. In addition, the IFTS simulation showed that the eco-compensation quota paid by downstream Guangdong Province to upstream Fujian Province is [28,116.4, 30,738.6] × 104 CNY, which is a reduction of [8461.404, 110,836] × 104 CNY compared to the 2018 compensation scheme of the government. Compared to the ITS model, the range of eco-compensation values was observed to increase by 9.94%, 54.81%, 15.85%, 50.31%, and 82.90%, respectively, under the five hydrological scenarios, which reduces the burden of ecological expenditure downstream and provides a broader decision-making space for decision-makers and thus enables improved decision-making efficiency. At the same time, after the optimization of the IFTS model, the additional water consumption of the second stage of the Tingjiang River during the extremely dry year decreased by 62.11% compared to the results of the ITS model. The additional water consumption of the industrial sector decreased by 68.39%, the municipal sector decreased by 59.27%, and in the first phase of water resources allocation for 14 districts and counties in the Tingjiang River, industrial and municipal sectors are the main two sectors. After introducing the fuzzy method into the IFTS model, the difference in the water consumption by these two sectors in the basin under different hydrological scenarios can be alleviated, and the waste of water resources caused by too low water allocation or excessive water allocation can be avoided. The national and local (the downstream region) eco-compensation quotas can be indirectly reduced, and the risk of water resources allocation and eco-compensation decision-making in the basin can be effectively reduced.

The Fe (II) and Mn (II) adsorption in acid mine drainage using various granular sizes of activated carbon and temperatures

Acid mine drainage (AMD) from coal mining activities contains Fe and Mn concentrations that often exceed environmental quality requirements. This study aims to determine the effect of the coal material size and temperature on the adsorption process of Fe and Mn metals contained in AMD using activated carbon made with a composition of 60% coal and 40% ZnCl2. For characterizing activated carbon, surface morphological was analyzed using SEM method, and surface area was analyzed using BET method. Meanwhile, for measuring Fe and Mn concentrations, the researchers used atomic absorption spectrophotometry. The adsorption process was carried out with various granular sizes of activated carbon (20, 28, 35, 48 and 60 mesh) and temperature (25, 35, 40, 45 and 50°C). The results showed that the maximum adsorption of Fe was 100% occurred in the treatment with an activated carbon size of 60 mesh and a temperature of 45°C, while the maximum adsorption of Mn was 11.91% in the treatment with an activated carbon size of 60 mesh and a temperature of 50°C. Furthermore, the activated carbon of coal is highly effective as an adsorbent for Fe in AMD waste but less effective for Mn.

Integrated Planning for Regional Development Planning with Low Carbon Development Constraint under Uncertainty: A Case Study of Qingpu District, Shanghai

Regional development planning systems contain multiple uncertainties which come from economic restructuring, resource management, carbon peak action, environmental protection, and other factors, it is difficulty to handle all of these uncertainties in one method. In order to solve this problem, a new model developed in this study combines an interval fuzzy program with an environmental quality model for regional development planning in order to provide optimal solutions. The interval fuzzy program is put forward based on interval parameter programming (IPP) and fuzzy programing (FP). The environmental quality model is used to calculate water environmental capacity and atmospheric capacity, which are set as constraint conditions in the model. In order to meet the requirements of carbon peak action, a low carbon development constraint is added to the model. In this model, decision makers can choose the satisfaction level of constraints based on their preferences. The results suggest that the methodology is applicable for the regional development planning system within the planning period. The developed model can be used to generate a series of optimization schema under multiple credibility levels, ensuring that the regional development planning system can meet both societal demands and environmental quality requirements, considering a proper balance between the expected system benefits and risks of violating the resource constraint and low carbon development constraint.

On the improvement of indoor environmental quality, energy performance and costs for a commercial nearly zero-energy building

The compliance with the indoor environmental quality (IEQ) requirements should be considered when designing retrofit actions for the refurbishment of existing buildings. The research is aimed to reduce the imbalance between the visual and thermal domains through the improvement of different design parameters in compliance with the nearly zero-energy building (nZEB) requirements. The article proposes a novel approach based on the integrated lighting, thermal, and energy dynamic simulation, to evaluate the overall building performance according to energy saving, cost effectiveness, and IEQ multi-criteria. Different energy efficiency actions, in terms of insulation materials, glazing solutions, and control strategies of the solar shading devices, have been applied to an existing office building-type. The analysis shows the possibility to design the refurbishment of an existing building into a nZEB while ensuring visual and thermal comfort. However, the not negligible costs lead to an incompliance with the cost-effectiveness requirements.

Environmental Regulation, Environmental Awareness and Environmental Governance Satisfaction

It is a problem worth thinking about whether the government’s environmental regulation policies can meet the residents’ requirements for environmental quality, and benefit the people. The study of the public’s subjective evaluation can more intuitively judge whether the government’s environmental regulation has realized “ecological benefits for the people”. Based on the data of the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) in 2013, this paper studied the impact of environmental regulation and environmental awareness on environmental governance satisfaction by an ordered probit model. The study found that environmental regulation has a significant positive impact on environmental governance satisfaction, while environmental awareness has a significant negative impact on environmental governance satisfaction. We also found that when public environmental awareness is taken into account, the positive relationship between environmental regulation and environmental governance satisfaction is affected. The robustness test proved this conclusion.

Re-thinking sludge management within the Sustainable Development Goal 6.2

Sustainable Development Goal 6.2 of the Agenda 2030 is addressed to achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all. Further, one of the major principles underlying the Lisbon Charter is that sustainable and safe management of wastewaters are fundamental to the health of communities and their sustainable socio-economic development. Within this framework, the management of sewage sludge in a sustainable manner is one of the critical issues facing modern society, due to the growing rise of its production, increasing difficulties in properly locating treatment and disposal works, and complying with more stringent environmental quality requirements, thus requiring a re-thinking of its management. This paper discusses major concepts and principles for re-thinking the sludge management in order to achieve the above-mentioned objectives.

Wastewater management by citizens: mismatch between legal rules and self-organisation in Oosterwold

Self-organisation in environmental service delivery is increasingly being promoted as an alternative to centralised service delivery. This article argues that self-organised environmental service delivery must be understood in the context of legal rules, especially environmental legislation. The article’s aim is twofold: first, to understand the changing relationship between the government and citizens in self-organised service delivery, and second, to explore how self-organised environmental service delivery complies with environmental quality requirements stipulated in legislation. The empirical study focuses on wastewater management in Oosterwold, the largest Dutch urban development that experimented with self-organisation. The results show that while individual wastewater management was prioritised and implemented at scale, the applicable legal rules were not adequately considered and integrated. Consequently, the experiment led to a deterioration of water quality. The article concludes that the success or failure of self-organisation in delivering environmental services such as wastewater management critically hinges on ensuring compliance with environmental legislation.

Fulfillment of river environmental flow: applying Nash theory for quantitative‐qualitative conflict resolution in reservoir operation

AbstractThe construction of reservoirs for water supply alters the riverine ecology and changes water quality. It is, therefore, imperative to estimate and provide the riverine environmental flow requirement to prevent irreversible environmental damage and to maintain suitable water quality. Water releases from reservoirs constitute the means for meeting environmental flow and water quality requirements downstream from reservoirs. These requirements can be realized through the modification of the reservoir operation programmes by reallocating a percentage of the reservoir releases otherwise dedicated to quantitative objectives. This is performed in this study by considering the qualitative (i.e. pertaining to water quality) objectives alongside quantitative objectives of reservoir releases in order to achieve a general coverage for an operating programme that balances in the most rational manner the interests of riverine environmental protection and quantitative functions. The case study area is located in the river reach between the Gotvand reservoir and Shooshtar city in the Gotvand‐Karoon reservoir‐river system in Iran. The range of riverine environmental flow is calculated in the study river reach with hydrologic methods. Water quality is simulated and included reservoir operation with the QUAL‐2K simulation model. The existing quantitative and qualitative objectives for reservoir operation are determined and classified. The best reservoir releases corresponding to three scenarios are determined by the Nash theory considering all possible objectives in the reservoir‐river system. These scenarios allocate relative weights to defined objectives and releases were determined to be equal to 183.8, 141.8 and 206.8 m3/s for three scenarios.

Comparative Study of Specifications Between Local and Imported Water Pumps and an Energy-Efficient Local Developed Pump

Conserving energy is one of those important requirements of the environment. In this research, an eco-friendly power saving Water pump [Air coolers] is developed. This development is based on GQFD. The model of this developed Water pump is drawn by a CAD solid model (version 7, Autodesk AutoCAD 2011). The electrical motor is responsible for the rotation of the pillar and further distributes Water inside the Air cooler [regardless of the size]. In the developed model motor is canceled where the rotation is throughout attachment to the Air cooler. A further prototype of this model is made were common and environmental quality requirements are assessed so as to verify the feasibility of the developed Water pumps. Results show that the power saving (developed) Water pump is of better-quality characteristics relative to available Water pumps available in the Iraqi market and higher head (1.60 m), Velocity in RPM (4600), and flow rate (8.6 L/sec). Also, the developed Water pump is of less noise, a number of parts, pollution, and is safer [regarding environmental requirements]. Due to the development results show save in voltage and current.

Method for long-term mapping of occupancy patterns in open-plan and single office spaces by using passive-infrared (PIR) sensors mounted below desks

Occupancy is a key input variable for sizing heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) in buildings. However, HVAC designers typically estimate occupancy data based on assumptions which rarely reflect the actual situation. Consequently, these assumptions might lead to under- or oversized HVAC systems that either provide too low or too high peak loads or ventilation airflows than actually required to satisfy indoor environmental quality (IEQ) requirements during building operation. To address these issues, existing studies suggest various methods for collecting and analysing occupancy, however mostly in single office spaces or at an overall building level. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the suitability of using passive-infrared (PIR) sensors mounted below occupants’ desks for collecting long-term occupancy data in open-plan and single office spaces. The method was tested in two office buildings for seven months. It determined occupant presence and count with an accuracy of 87.5% compared to manual observations. Furthermore, the study demonstrated that occupancy data could be used to (1) generate occupancy schedules for input in building simulation models, (2) potentially reduce design ventilation airflows for HVAC sizing and (3) evaluate decisions to change the office space layout (e.g. number of desks) for more efficient space-use.

Environmental threats induced heavy ecological burdens on the coastal zone of the Bohai Sea, China

The environment of the Bohai Sea is under enormous pressure because of rapid economic and urban development associated with increased population inhabiting the coastal zone. Environmental threats to the coastal ecosystem were analyzed using 2006–2017 statistical/monitoring data from the State Oceanic Administration, China. The results showed that harmful algal blooms occurred a total of 104 times during the period of 2006–2017, for a cumulative area of more than 21,275 km2. The main environmental threats came from offshore oil and gas production in the form of hydrocarbon pollution during extraction, as well as from urban wastewater and sewage. Oil pollution, mainly generated from spills, offshore oil platforms and large number of vessels/ports, was found to cause very severe negative impacts on the environment. Another threat is from excessive groundwater exploitation which has resulted in seawater intrusion and soil salinization occurrence in more than 90% of coastal areas around the Bohai Sea. The maximum distance of intrusion by seawater and soil salinization was more than 40 and 32 km inland, respectively. Contamination by terrestrial pollutants was identified as another threat affecting the environment quality of the Bohai Sea. Approximately 840,000 t of pollutants were carried into the sea by major rivers annually for 2010–2017. The standard discharge rate of terrestrial-source sewage outlets did not exceed 50%; however, only 13.12% of sea areas adjacent to sewage outlets (rivers) met the environmental quality requirements for functional marine areas. The results also showed the frequency of storm surges in the Bohai Sea which was 8.83 times per year and the resulting annual direct economic losses reached (RMB) 1.77 billion for 2006–2017. The results highlight the urgent need to implement an ecological management strategy to reduce the heavy ecological burdens in the coastal zone of the Bohai Sea.

Strategies to enhance the reliability of flow quantile prediction in the gauged and ungauged basins

AbstractThe precise reproduction of different flow regimes in both gauged and ungauged watersheds is crucial for managing environmental flow and water quality requirements. However, the ability of hydrological models to reproduce flow quantiles (FQs) is often influenced by the process of calibrating the most dominant parameters through traditional parameter estimation methods. This research proposes a systematic parameter estimation approach to improve the credibility of the hydrologic model in reproducing FQs in gauged and ungauged watersheds through the following steps: (a) implementation of parameter sensitivity analysis to identify the dominant parameters, (b) initial estimation of the sensitive parameter values, (c) an iterative search for the optimal value of the dominant parameter in reproducing FQs and (d) regionalization of parameters to estimate FQs in the ungauged watersheds. The analysis shows the highest sensitivity of the runoff curve number (CN2) in simulating the hydrologic process in all test watersheds. Moreover, the best value of CN2 was found to be different for each flow quantile. Therefore, CN2 was updated for reproduction of FQs, which resulted in an overall average improvement of the regionalized model accuracy (across all test watersheds and flow quantiles) by 37 and 46% during the calibration and validation periods, respectively. The spatiotemporal dynamics of the water balance components that often control the behaviours of FQs in both the gauged and ungauged watersheds were also quantified. The results show a wide range of spatiotemporal variations for the majority of the water balance components.