Southwestern Cities Research Articles

Health-Related Parameterization Evaluating Thermal Comfort in Urban Green Spaces: Data Sourced from a Global Database and Mapping at National Scale

Outdoor thermal comfort (OTC) is one of the most important issues for people exposed to urban green space (UGS). It is mainly evaluated by assessing equivalent meteorological factors that may combine and result in human responses of perceptions about comfortable vs. uncomfortable environments. The assessment of these responses is challenged by limits in a database that is powerful enough to support big-data analysis and an essential parameter that can evaluate health-related responses to OTC in urban forests. In this study, a meta-analysis was conducted by synthesizing studies of physiological and psychological health responses of green space (GS) visitors to meteorological factors in host cities on a global scale. A total of 15,000 numerical records about the psychological and physiological responses of UGS visitors were obtained from 105 papers across 68 global cities in 21 countries. A novel parameterization was developed to evaluate OTC by normalizing changes in health-related parameters and detecting their regressions against multiple meteorological factors. It was revealed that OTC resulted in more benefits in psychological health parameters than in physiological ones for UGS visitors worldwide. Globally, health-promoting OTC environments were more found in temperate countries than in countries subjected to other climates. People in Asian countries were indicated to live in environments with higher comfort that benefitted health states in cities at low latitudes. Thermal environments tended to be harsher and more challenging, mostly too chilling, in northern cities than in the south globally. A deep learning model using the ResNet algorithm was found to perform to an expected level with R2 as high as >70% and errors controlled generally lower than 0.01. Taking mainland China for instance, it was predicted that thermal environments in eastern cities of China highly challenged the psychological health of local UGS visitors across all seasons of the year. Northern cities of China were predicted to have satisfied thermal environments that benefited psychological and psychological health responses in spring. In summer, cities in West China were predicted to have comfortable thermal environments, and in winter, environments in the southwestern cities were more comfortable.

Water calligraphy: A living aesthetics in China’s south-western cities

Water calligraphy: A living aesthetics in China’s south-western cities

INFLUENCE OF TRANSPORT OPERATIONS ON THE CHANGING LOCAL CLIMATE IN NIGERIA’S SOUTHWESTERN CITIES

The activities of transport operations exhibit both positive and negative outcomes. Its negative effects on human health and the sustainability of the environment are of interest in this study. As a result, the study investigated the influence of transport operations on the changing local climate in Nigeria's southwestern cities. It investigated motorists' socioeconomic status (SES) and travel characteristics; the salient components of transport operations contributing to greenhouse gas emissions (GHG emissions); the effect of GHG emissions from transport operations on the local climate; transport externalities contributing to local temperature changes; and the effect of GHG emissions from transport operations on human health in the research location. This study employed a cross-sectional research design, utilizing systematic sampling to collect 580 copies of questionnaires administered to commercial motorists found in queues across two randomly selected parks in each capital city within the region. Both descriptive and inferential statistics (ANOVA and Linear Regression) were used to analyze the data. The study found that 60% of the motorists were middle-aged (aged between 36 and 45). The majority (70%) drive an average of 100 to 150 km, and premium motor spirit (PMS) is the primary source of energy for 95% of them. The nature and condition of the fuel in use are the top-ranked components of transport operations contributing to GHG emissions. The result of the ANOVA revealed a significant variation among the components of transport operations contributing to GHG emissions (F = 28.302, p = 0.000<0.05). Meanwhile, the linear regression results indicate that vehicular GHG emissions have a significant impact on the local climate (F1⁄578=30.091, p=0.000<0.05). Traffic congestion and bad road conditions were the top-ranked transport externalities contributing to the changing local climate. The most common effects of GHG emissions on human health were headaches and difficulty breathing. Considering these findings, this study suggests the best tactics to lessen the effects of GHG emissions from transport operations, which adversely affect the local climate and human health in the study area.

A Survey of Ophthalmologists in 52 Cities in the Southern United States

Background: The United States (US) supply of surgical specialty practitioners in 2025 is projected to fall short by 24,340 physician full-time equivalents. The greatest deficit is projected for ophthalmology with the most affected region noted to be the southern US. Aims: To better understand the distribution of our ophthalmology workforce in the southern US and to identify cities with less access to subspecialty-specific vision care. Objective: To determine the prevalence of ophthalmologists as well as rates of ophthalmology subspecialists and practice types in the three largest cities of each state within the southern US. Methods: The American Academy of Ophthalmology’s “Find an Ophthalmologist” online listing was queried on a city-by-city basis from December 2020 to April 2021. The number and location of ophthalmologists were determined in the three largest cities, according to population, in the southern US. Data collected on each ophthalmologist included sex, primary subspecialty, practice type, year of first board certification, and academic affiliation. Results: There were 1,735 total ophthalmologists identified in the three largest cities of each state, 52 cities in total, within the southern US. The majority were male (n= 1,369, 78.90%) and board-certified prior to or during 1997 (n= 913, 52.62%). There were 12,308 persons per ophthalmologist (P/O) in the southern US. Cities with the highest P/O ratio were Rio Rancho, NM (101,475 P/O), Southaven, MS (28,691 P/O), and Houston, TX (27,868 P/O). The lowest P/O ratios included Morgantown, WV (1,587 P/O), Charleston, WV (2,263 P/O), and Wilmington, DE (3,025 P/O). Less populated cities (<300,000 persons) had a significantly higher proportion of comprehensive ophthalmologists in the southern US (p-value=0.007). Conclusion: A total of 550 ophthalmologists were evaluated in southwestern cities and 1,185 were evaluated in southeastern cities. Our results suggest that less populated cities are driven by comprehensive ophthalmology practices. This data suggests greater vulnerability in certain cities with less access to subspecialty-specific vision care.

Importance of secondary decomposition in the accurate prediction of daily-scale ozone pollution by machine learning

Machine learning (ML) models have been proven as a reliable tool in predicting ambient pollution concentrations at various places in the world. However, their performance in predicting the maximum daily 8-h averaged ozone (MDA8 O3), the metric often used for O3 pollution assessment and management, is relatively poorer. This is largely resulted from more irregular data fluctuations of the MDA8 O3 levels governed collectively by the synoptic condition, local photochemistry, and long-range transport. In order to improve the prediction accuracy of MDA8 O3, this study developed a secondary decomposition ML model framework which coupled the complete ensemble empirical mode decomposition with adaptive noise (CEEMDAN) as the primary decomposition, the variational mode decomposition (VMD) as secondary decomposition, and the gate recurrent unit (GRU) ML model. By applying this secondary decomposition model framework on MDA8 O3 prediction for the first time, we showed that the prediction accuracy of MDA8 O3 is largely improved from R2 of 0.46 and RMSE of 30.4 μg/m3 for GRU without decomposition to R2 of 0.91 and RMSE of 12.6 μg/m3 over the Pearl River Delta of China. We also found that the prediction accuracy rate of O3 pollution non-attainments, an essential indicator for initiating contingency O3 pollution control, improved greatly from 14.9 % for GRU without decomposition to 72.5 %. The performance of O3 pollution non-attainment prediction is relatively higher in southwestern PRD, which is mainly due to greater number and severity of O3 non-attainments in southwestern cities located downwind of the emission hotspot area at central PRD. This study underscored the importance of secondary decomposition in accurately predicting daily-scale O3 concentration and non-attainments over the PRD, which can be extended to other photochemically active region worldwide to improve their O3 prediction accuracy and assist in O3 contingency control.

Spatio-temporal changes in racial segregation and diversity in large US cities from 1990 to 2020: a visual data analysis

Urban populations in large US cities exhibit racial and ethnic diversity, yet they remain residentially segregated. The examination of temporal trends in segregation and diversity is crucial for sociologists and urban planners. In this study, we investigate the spatio-temporal changes in segregation and diversity across 61 major US cities, utilizing data from four US Censuses conducted between 1990 and 2020. Unlike previous studies, our approach relies on visual data analysis, enabling us to capture the overarching changes in racial coresidence during this period. We employ four distinct perspectives – geographical, temporal, groups evolution, and desegregation scale limit – to visualize and analyze the data. Geographical analysis uncovers a decrease in regional disparities in urban diversity and segregation since 1990, as urban racial integration extends beyond West Coast and Southwestern cities to encompass the entire US. Through temporal analysis, we observe a general trend of rapidly increasing diversity and gradual reduction in segregation, albeit with varying rates across different cities. Groups evolution analysis reveals that cities grouped based on their diversity and segregation metrics in 1990 follow the overall trend toward larger diversity and smaller segregation while preserving group’s coherence but not their distinctiveness. Finally, the desegregation scale limit perspective suggests that, on average, over the 1990 to 2020 period, the desegregation scale has started to subceed the lower limit of the census block. By employing these diverse analytical perspectives, our study provides a comprehensive understanding of the changes in racial segregation and diversity within US cities over the past three decades.

Matching end-of-life household vehicle generation and recycling capacity in Chinese cities: A spatio-temporal analysis for 2022–2050

End-of-life vehicles (ELVs) present both opportunities and challenges for the environment and the economy, where effective recycling management plays a decisive role. Recently, the primary focus of recycling management has shifted from simply meeting demand to refining and optimizing processes at the city-scale. However, the mismatch in recycling capacity has become a significant obstacle to maximizing environmental and economic benefits. To reveal this issue and propose improvements in the context of China, this study simulates end-of-life internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) and new energy vehicles (NEVs) at the city-scale from 2021 to 2050, and analyzes their spatio-temporal pattern and recycling capacity matching. The results indicate that the number of ELVs in China will continue to increase, peaking between 3.5 and 3.7 million. This growth will be mainly driven by third- to fifth-tier cities, as well as central and southwestern cities. Regarding recycling capacity matching, most cities possess excess dismantling capacity, while first-tier cities face coordination problems in battery collection. Spatial coordination across cities or provinces is a viable approach for dismantling enterprises and should be prioritized over indiscriminate deregistration or establishing new facilities. The absence of initiative within the recycling system results in uncoordinated battery collection. Implementing a recycling-sharing mechanism and establishing a reuse market can effectively tackle this problem by leveraging market incentives. These analyses provide practical suggestions to maximize the environmental and economic benefits of resource recycling, thereby contributing to the UN's 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Fast spreading of surface ozone in both temporal and spatial scale in Pearl River Delta

Surface ozone (O3) is a major air pollutant and draw increasing attention in the Pearl River Delta (PRD), China. Here, we characterize the spatial-temporal variability of ozone based on a dataset obtained from 57 national monitoring sites during 2013-2019. Our results show that: (1) the seasonal difference of ozone distribution in the inland and coastal areas was significant, which was largely affected by the wind pattern reversals related to the East Asian monsoon, and local ozone production and destruction; (2) the daily maximum 8hr average (MDA8 O3) showed an overall upward trend by 1.11 ppbv/year. While the trends in the nine cities varied differently by ranging from -0.12 to 2.51 ppbv/year. The hot spots of ozone were spreading to southwestern areas from the central areas since 2016. And ozone is becoming a year-round air pollution problem with the pollution season extending to winter and spring in PRD region. (3) at the central and southwestern PRD cities, the percentage of exceedance days from the continuous type (defined as ≥3 days) was increasing. Furthermore, the ozone concentration of continuous type was much higher than that of scattered exceedance type (<3 days). In addition, although the occurrence of continuous type starts to decline since 2017, the total number of exceedance days during the continuous type is increasing. These results indicate that it is more difficult to eliminate the continuous exceedance than the scatter pollution days and highlight the great challenge in mitigation of O3 pollution in these cities.

Integration of Moran's I, geographically weighted regression (GWR), and ordinary least square (OLS) models in spatiotemporal modeling of COVID-19 outbreak in Qom and Mazandaran Provinces, Iran.

Globally, the COVID-19 pandemic is a top-level public health concern. This paper attempts to identify the COVID-19 pandemic in Qom and Mazandaran provinces, Iran using spatial analysis approaches. This study was based on secondary data of confirmed cases and deaths from February 3, 2020, to late October 2021, in two Qom and Mazandaran provinces from hospitals and the website of the National Institute of Health. In this paper, three geographical models in ArcGIS 10.8.1 were utilized to analyze and evaluate COVID-19, including geographic weight regression (GWR), ordinary least squares (OLS), and spatial autocorrelation (Moran I). The results from this study indicate that the rate of scattering of confirmed cases for Qom province for the period was 44.25%, while the rate of dispersal of the deaths was 4.34%. Based on the GWR and OLS model, Moran's statistics demonstrated that confirmed cases, deaths, and recovered followed a clustering pattern during the study period. Moran's Z-score for all three indicators of confirmed cases, deaths, and recovered was confirmed to be greater than 2.5 (95% confidence level) for both GWR and OLS models. The spatial distribution of indicators of confirmed cases, deaths, and recovered based on the GWR model has been more scattered in the northwestern and southwestern cities of Qom province. Whereas the spatial distribution of the recoveries of the COVID-19 pandemic in Qom province was 61.7%, the central regions of this province had the highest spread of recoveries. The spatial spread of the COVID-19 pandemic from February 3, 2020, to October 2021 in Mazandaran province was 35.57%, of which 2.61% died, according to information published by the COVID-19 pandemic headquarters. Most confirmed cases and deaths are scattered in the north of this province. The ordinary least squares model results showed that the spatial dispersion of recovered people from the COVID-19 pandemic is more significant in the central and southern regions of Mazandaran province. The Z-score for the deaths Index is more significant than 14.314. The results obtained from this study and the information published by the National Headquarters for the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic showed that tourism and pilgrimages are possible factors for the spatial distribution of the COVID-19 pandemic in Qom and Mazandaran provinces. The spatial information obtained from these modeling approaches could provide general insights to authorities and researchers for further targeted investigations and policies in similar circumcises.

Review: Air-Conditioning in Modern American Architecture, 1890–1970

Review: <i>Air-Conditioning in Modern American Architecture, 1890–1970</i>

Spatiotemporal characteristics and drivers of Chinese urban total noise pollution from 2007 to 2019.

Noise pollution as a result of urbanization and socioeconomic development threatens human health and has become a major environmental problem worldwide, particularly for urban residents. Based on observed equivalent noise data of 113 major Chinese cities, a Bayesian spatiotemporal hierarchy model (BSTHM) was employed to investigate the spatiotemporal characteristics of urban noise pollution in China from 2007 to 2019. Meanwhile, the BART model was adopted to explore the drivers of urban noise pollution. The mean and medium of the equivalent noise of the 113 major cities decreased from 2007 to 2011 but increased from 2011 to 2019; the corresponding annual growth is 0.0793 dB and 0.0947 dB per year. The overall spatial pattern has a certain geographical feature. The cities located in the eastern and north-eastern coastal regions generally have a higher level of noise pollution, and the western and southwestern cities have a lower level. One hundred cities not only have greater noise pollution but also an increasing trend. Although the 52 cities located in Western China have less noise pollution, they have increasing local trends. The results indicate that economic and social factors are the main drivers of noise pollution of China; the explanatory power is 46.2%. Traffic factors are also relatively important drivers, of which bus ridership is the leading one. In terms of the natural environment, climatic factors, including temperature and relative humidity, and presence of green areas containing parkland and general green land are the main determinants.

Biomonitoring of BTEX in primary school children exposed to hookah smoke.

Hookah smoking is one of the major indoor sources of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes (BTEX). This study aimed to investigate the potential exposure to BTEX among primary school children, particularly those exposed to hookah smoke. This cross-sectional study was conducted in Khesht, one of the southwestern cities in Iran, in mid-June 2020. Totally, 50 primary school children exposed to hookah smoke were chosen as the case group and 50 primary school children were selected as the control group. Urinary un-metabolized BTEX was measured by a headspace gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC–MS). Additionally, a detailed questionnaire was used to gather data and information from the students’ parents. The mean levels of urinary benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, m,p-xylene, and o-xylene were 1.44, 5.87, 2.49, 6.93, and 7.17 μg/L, respectively in the exposed children. Urinary BTEX was 3.93-folds higher in the case group than in the controls (p<0.05). Household cleaning products, the floor on which the house was located, children’s sleeping place, and playing outdoors were found to be important factors in predicting urinary BTEX levels. Overall, it was found necessary to avoid indoor smoking to prevent the emission of BTEX compounds via exhaled mainstream smoke and to protect vulnerable non-smokers, especially children, from exposure to second-hand and third-hand smoke.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11356-022-19882-9.

Hispanic Threat and Police Strength in U.S. Municipalities: The Moderating Influences of Nativity and Region

AbstractA key question of research on crime control is whether the level of police strength in cities primarily represents citizens’ collective interest in cutting crime, or whites’ interest in exerting control over minority populations in a racially divided society. Minority threat theories maintain that whites and police authorities seek to protect their interests by mobilizing their political power to enhance police strength in cities with relatively large minority populations. Research testing this hypothesis examines the relationships of percent black and percent Hispanic to the strength of police departments. Studies of blacks support minority threat theories, but the limited research on Hispanics does not. We extend research on Hispanics by incorporating nativity and region into an analysis of cities of 100,000 or more population in 2010. Noteworthy findings include complex interactions involving those predictors. Percent native-born Hispanic has a stronger negative relationship with police strength at higher levels of Hispanic-white residential segregation, but only in southwestern cities. Percent black is associated with increased police strength at higher levels of black-white segregation, but only in non-southwestern cities. These findings indicate that nativity, segregation, and regional context may jointly shape the mobilization of coercive crime control, sometimes in unexpected ways.

EXPLORING GANG RISK FACTORS AMONG URBAN NIGERIAN YOUTHS

The proliferation of urban youth gangs is often attributed to criminogenic factors of economic, family, and community contexts. Among urban Nigerian youths, the sharp increase in youth gangs has been exacerbated by a broken socio-cultural value system arising from a sustained economic dislocation, aping of foreign cultures, as well as a predatory political elite that uses gang members as foot soldiers in the violent struggle for political power by rival political groups. This study examines the etiology, trend, and dynamism of gang culture in Nigeria. Employing a qualitative approach, the study used data from semi-structured interviews with gang members in Ibadan and Lagos, two of the large southwestern cities in Nigeria. Findings revealed that the interplay of multi-dimensional risk factors has contributed to the rapid growth of urban gang culture in Nigeria with the consequent effect on the increase in crime rates

In the Loop: A Political and Economic History of San Antonio by David R. Johnson

Reviewed by: In the Loop: A Political and Economic History of San Antonio by David R. Johnson Herbert G. Ruffin II In the Loop: A Political and Economic History of San Antonio. By David R. Johnson. (San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 2020. Pp. 576. Illustrations, appendix, notes, index.) In the Loop examines the political and economic history of San Antonio from the 1700s into the 2000s, ranging from the time it was a colony of Spain to the mid-1970s, when its city leaders and businessmen stopped linking inevitability to city growth and instead adopted a modern political system of urban growth centered on good-faith cooperation by government, business, and investors. It is written in the tradition of American urban history by scholars like Carl Abbott, Roger W. Lotchin, Char Miller, and Rodolfo Rosales. Urban historian David R. Johnson gives special attention to western history and to the political and economic impact that urban power brokers have had in urbanizing and industrializing San Antonio over the past three centuries. An accessible read organized into three parts and ten chapters that are bookended by a brief introduction and an afterword that takes the story into the twenty-first century, the book shines in the telling of San Antonio’s urban growth within its Interstate 410 beltway. After a general discussion of Spanish San Antonio and early boosterism, core themes examine San Antonio’s Main Plaza and the struggles related to creating a culture of professional boosterism; slums, scandal, and revitalizing San Antonio’s downtown; and the explosive urban growth that occurred under a new, competent, and committed group of developers who used cooperative partnerships, suburban development, and management of discontented [End Page 214] old guard, Mexican American, and African American community advocates. Using as its sources land transactions, books, articles, newspapers, reports, special collections, meeting minutes, and interviews, In the Loop explains a few curiosities about the city. For example, how does a city with a small-town feel and a history of complacent and conflicted leadership grow into a major metropolis? Why do many southwestern cities that formed after 1950, like San Antonio and San Jose, California, have huge suburban subdivisions annexed within their city limits? One area in which the book is vulnerable to criticism is its social history, especially as it addresses women and race relations. An adequate examination on how women affected San Antonio’s growth is missing. In regard to race relations between White and Mexican-origin San Antonians, the narrative is more thorough in addressing how that history impacted the city’s political and economic history. Managing race relations and maintaining a strong military presence, it can be argued, have been a concern of city leaders ever since the mission of San Antonio de Valero and presidio of San Antonio de Béxar were established in 1718. This tradition transferred from Tejanos to White Texans in the 1830s and did not change until the civil rights struggles of the 1960s and 1970s forced San Antonio’s old guard to start taking notice of Mexican American and African American infrastructural needs in Southside and Eastside San Antonio. The limited coverage of Black San Antonians in chapter 9 is the only section in which their history is critically discussed. In every other chapter there is brief mention of slavery, Jim Crow, and the impact of defense industry jobs during World War II, but despite the notable growth in Black Texas history since Alwyn Barr’s Black Texans (Jenkins, 1973), the Black experience is no more than a footnote in this otherwise brilliant telling of the political and economic history of the Alamo City. That said, In the Loop is essential for a basic understanding of the political and economic history of San Antonio. It is a must-read for audiences interested in a mostly comprehensive story of the formation and growth of San Antonio, which by 1990 had become one of the ten most populated cities in the United States. Herbert G. Ruffin II Syracuse University Copyright © 2021 The Texas State Historical Association

Resolution matters when modeling climate change in headwaters of the Colorado River

The continued growth of Southwestern cities depends on reliable water export from Rocky Mountain headwaters, which provide ∼85% of Colorado River Basin (CRB) streamflow. Despite being more sensitive to warming temperatures, alpine systems are simplified in the regional-scale models currently in use to plan for future water supply. We used an integrated hydrologic model that couples groundwater and surface water with snow and vegetation processes to examine the effect of topographic simplifications as a result of grid coarsening in a representative CRB headwater basin. High-resolution (100 m) simulations predicted headwater streamflow losses of 16% by 2050 while coarse-resolution (1 km) simulations predict only 12%, suggesting that regional-scale models (coarser than 1 km) likely overestimate future Colorado River Basin water supplies.

Significant effects of ecological context on urban trees’ cooling efficiency

Urban heat island effect in most cities is likely to be exacerbated in future years due to the synergetic effects of urbanization and global climate change. Numerous studies have shown cooling effects of urban vegetation. However, the magnitude of temperature reduction by one-unit (e.g., 1% of tree cover) increase of vegetation abundance, defined as cooling efficiency (CE) here, varies greatly by different studies, but with little understanding on such variation. This study aims to fill this gap by investigating the spatial variation of CE across biomes in the continental USA, and how it is affected by ecological context, especially climatic conditions. We calculated CE for 118 cities from 10 different biomes using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) linear regression models with percent of urban trees (Ptree) as the independent variable, and land surface temperature (LST) as the dependent variable. The results revealed that the average value of CE was 0.168 °C (0.040–0.574 °C), and Ptree could explain an average of 40.3% of LST's variation. CE was higher in southwestern cities especially in hot and dry biomes but not significantly different among other remaining biomes, within which CE was typically greater in biomes dominated by broadleaf trees compared to those dominated by coniferous or sparse trees. Climatic context including air temperature, humidity and wind speed strongly affected CE but not always in a linear way. In addition, air temperature played a more important role in affecting CE than humidity in humid cities, but the opposite in dry cities. Understanding the variation of CE of urban trees among different cities and its climatic drivers can provide important insights for urban heat mitigation and adaptation.

Carbon dioxide emission driving factors analysis and policy implications of Chinese cities: Combining geographically weighted regression with two-step cluster

Global warming and climate change have become a serious environmental problem and China's carbon emissions are currently the highest in the world. Cities are the main sources of carbon emissions and the key to solving these problems. Therefore, research on reducing carbon dioxide emissions is a matter of concern. In this study, a spatial autocorrelation analysis was performed to understand the spatial characteristics of carbon dioxide emissions in 171 Chinese cities. Then, stepwise and geographically weighted regressions were used to explore the processes that drive carbon dioxide emissions in Chinese cities. A two-step cluster was used to classify Chinese cities into different categories based on the degree of impact of each driver. The results showed that there is a spatial aggregation relationship between urban carbon dioxide emissions. High-high clusters mainly occur in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and Yangtze River Delta urban agglomerations, while low-low clusters occur in the central, western, and southwestern cities. Among all variables, freight volume, per capita gross domestic product, population density, and the proportion of secondary industries correlate positively with carbon dioxide emissions, whereas the number of buses per 10,000 people correlates negatively with carbon dioxide emissions. The geographically weighted regression model provided more detailed results and revealed the spatial heterogeneity of the effects of the different drivers. The impact of population, economic factors, and industrial factors in the eastern region is significantly greater than that in the central and western regions. Freight volume and public transport have the most significant impact in the northeast region. The clustering results showed that cities can be divided into four types. These findings provide a reference and policy suggestions for how cities in different regions should reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Natural capital utilization on an international tourism island based on a three-dimensional ecological footprint model: A case study of Hainan Province, China

Abstract Natural capital is a limited and irreplaceable factor for human welfare and sustainability. Natural capital includes natural capital flow and natural capital stock. When natural capital flow cannot meet the needs of regional development, it begins to consume natural capital stock. Therefore, the assessment of the current utilization status of natural capital flows and stocks is not only the basis for regional ecological construction evaluation but also an important indicator of the effectiveness of regional sustainable development strategies. This study uses the three-dimensional ecological footprint model to systematically and comprehensively evaluate the utilization status of natural capital flows and stocks in Hainan Province from 2005 to 2016. The driving factors behind changes in the natural capital stock are revealed using a partial least squares method. Our results indicate the following. (1) The per capita ecological footprint of Hainan Province is increasing at an annual rate of 3.87%, and the per capita ecological deficit is increasing at an annual rate of 5.85%. The ecological footprints are mainly composed of cropland and forest land and the account composition is dominated by the biological and energy accounts; (2) The growth of water body natural capital flow promotes the total natural capital flow consumption of Hainan Province from 2005 to 2016 with an annual average of 0.41%. The natural capital flow consumption is mainly in the north, northeast and southwestern cities and counties, and the growth rate of natural capital flow consumption is greatest in the central mountainous region; (3) The consumption of total natural capital stock is growing at an average annual rate of 4.49%, from a value of 2.97 times the sustainable resource consumption of Hainan Province in 2005, increasing to a factor of 4.81 times in 2016. The natural capital stock consumption is mainly in the north and northeast in terms of quantity and growth rate; (4) The secondary industries, the year-end resident population, the total energy consumption and the total investment in fixed assets are the natural capital stock consumption of Hainan Province. These findings can provide a scientific reference for the formulation of Hainan’s economic development and environmental protection policies to promote the coordinated and sustainable development of social, economic and environmental aspects of Hainan Province.

Evaluation of China's Environmental Pressures Based on Satellite NO2 Observation and the Extended STIRPAT Model.

China’s rapid urbanization and industrialization have affected the spatiotemporal patterns of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) pollution, which has led to greater environmental pressures. In order to mitigate the environmental pressures caused by NO2 pollution, it is of vital importance to investigate the influencing factors. We first obtained data for NO2 pollution at the city level using satellite observation techniques and analyzed its spatial distribution. Next, we introduced a theoretical framework, an extended stochastic impacts by regression on population, affluence, and technology (STIRPAT) model, to quantify the relationship between NO2 pollution and its contributing natural and socio-economic factors. The results are as follows. Cities with high NO2 pollution are mainly concentrated in the North China Plain. On the contrary, southwestern cities are characterized by low NO2 pollution. In addition, we find that population, per capita gross domestic product, the share of the secondary industry, ambient air pressures, total nighttime light data, and urban road area have a positive impact on NO2 pollution. In contrast, increases in the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), relative humidity, temperature, and wind speed may reduce NO2 pollution. These empirical results should help the government to effectively and efficiently implement further emission reductions and energy saving policies in Chinese cities in a bid to mitigate the environmental pressures.