Sub-national Scale Research Articles

Estimating COVID Risk During a Period of Pandemic Decline.

Background: Many parts of the world that succeeded in suppressing epidemic coronavirus spread in 2020 have been caught out by recent changes in the transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2. Australia's early success in suppressing COVID-19 resulted in lengthy periods without community transmission. However, a slow vaccine rollout leaves this geographically isolated population vulnerable to leakage of new variants from quarantine, which requires internal travel restrictions, disruptive lockdowns, contact tracing and testing surges.Methods: To assist long term sustainment of limited public health resources, we sought a method of continuous, real-time COVID-19 risk monitoring that could be used to alert non-specialists to the level of epidemic risk on a sub-national scale. After an exploratory data assessment, we selected four COVID-19 metrics used by public health in their periodic threat assessments, applied a business continuity matrix and derived a numeric indicator; the COVID-19 Risk Estimate (CRE), to generate a daily spot CRE, a 3 day net rise and a seven day rolling average. We used open source data updated daily from all Australian states and territories to monitor the CRE for over a year.Results: Upper and lower CRE thresholds were established for the CRE seven day rolling average, corresponding to risk of sustained and potential outbreak propagation, respectively. These CRE thresholds were used in a real-time map of Australian COVID-19 risk estimate distribution by state and territory.Conclusions: The CRE toolkit we developed complements other COVID-19 risk management techniques and provides an early indication of emerging threats to business continuity.

Impacts of worldwide individual non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 transmission across waves and space

Governments worldwide have rapidly deployed non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the effect of these individual NPI measures across space and time has yet to be sufficiently assessed, especially with the increase of policy fatigue and the urge for NPI relaxation in the vaccination era. Using the decay ratio in the suppression of COVID-19 infections and multi-source big data, we investigated the changing performance of different NPIs across waves from global and regional levels (in 133 countries) to national and subnational (in the United States of America [USA]) scales before the implementation of mass vaccination. The synergistic effectiveness of all NPIs for reducing COVID-19 infections declined along waves, from 95.4% in the first wave to 56.0% in the third wave recently at the global level and similarly from 83.3% to 58.7% at the USA national level, while it had fluctuating performance across waves on regional and subnational scales. Regardless of geographical scale, gathering restrictions and facial coverings played significant roles in epidemic mitigation before the vaccine rollout. Our findings have important implications for continued tailoring and implementation of NPI strategies, together with vaccination, to mitigate future COVID-19 waves, caused by new variants, and other emerging respiratory infectious diseases.

The Need for Inter/Subdisciplinary Thinking in Critical Conceptualizations of Displacement

Displacement occupies an ambiguous position in contemporary geographical thought. Displacement through gentrification and regeneration has gained prominence in critical urban geography, even as critical migration, border, and citizenship studies have simultaneously produced a robust literature on transnational displacement and internally displaced persons. In response to emerging crises of global and urban order, this article adds to a consideration of displacement—as concept and methodology—through an urging of attention to three drivers common to urban, subnational, and transnational scales of displacement. Our key argument is to suggest an urgent research agenda addressing the different scales and roles of value, choice, and infrastructure, both as drivers in processes of displacement and as points of learning between subdisciplines. Collectively, our work on migration and urban restructuring shows that large-scale development and resettlement projects, labor markets, and extraordinary measures of crisis management generate new ways in which value is extracted from displaced bodies and depeopled places. Against a tendency to index displacement (in both policy and research methodology) as either voluntary or nonvoluntary, we advance a critique of the choice structure of displacement. We further call attention to the infrastructures and technologies through which displacement is moved from a temporary state of exception to an ongoing state of normality. In doing so, we call for the need to rethink the epistemology of displacement and identify the significance of cross-subdisciplinary conversations for this project.

Do environmental regulation and urbanization help decouple economic growth from water consumption at national and subnational scales in China?

Moving to economic growth without water consumption growth is essential to sustainability of both water and economy. This work is aimed to estimate the decoupling state between economic growth and water consumption and then to investigate the effects of urbanization and environmental regulation on water consumption at national and subnational scales using panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2004 to 2019. The decoupling results show that (i) there are only two types between China's water consumption and economic growth: weak decoupling (80%) and strong decoupling (20%); (ii) the weak decoupling has transitioned to strong decoupling after 2013; and that (iii) the decoupling degree of the water-poor region is weaker than that of the water-rich region. The results of causal relationships estimation show that an average 1% increase in urbanization level and environmental regulation leads to 0.3359% and 0.0104% drop in water consumption, respectively, which indicates that urbanization and environmental regulation have inhibited water consumption at the national scale. At the subnational sale, the effects of environmental regulation and urbanization on water consumption are heterogeneous. An average 1% increase in environmental regulation led to only a 0.0161% drop in water consumption in the water-poor region, whereas an average 1% increase in urbanization level led to only a 0.9838% drop in water consumption in the water-rich region. This means that the inhibition of environmental regulation on water use appears in the water-poor region, while the inhibition of urbanization is more prominent in the water-rich region.

Revealing the spatio-temporal characteristics of drought in Mozambique and their relationship with large-scale climate variability

Study regionMozambique. Study focusMozambique does not currently have the necessary tools for systematic monitoring and forecasting of drought at a subnational scale. The purpose of this study was to characterize drought conditions and trends throughout the country and to evaluate the influence of major climatic drivers on drought events (period 1950–2019). Drought conditions were studied by means of the Standardized Precipitation and Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) and run theory. The principal component analysis technique and the k-means clustering method were applied for defining homogenous drought regions. The Mann-Kendall trend test and Rescaled Range statistical analysis were used for defining the temporal characteristics of drought. The cross-correlation method, a spectral analysis based on the Fast Fourier Transform and a cross-wavelet analysis, were used to identify possible climate drivers. The results are ultimately intended to contribute to the development of a drought monitoring system in this country. New hydrological insights for the regionThree homogeneous drought regions can be defined in Mozambique. The South and Centre regions showed more intense and severe drought events. In all regions, a significant trend towards a higher incidence of droughts and long-term a persistence were found. El Niño-Southern Oscillation and Darwin Sea Level Pressure anomalies were identified as significant drivers of drought variability, especially in the southern regions. These climate indices can be used as predictors in drought forecasting models.

Evolution of water quality and biota in the Panjiakou Reservoir, China as a consequence of social and economic development: implications for synergies and trade-offs between Sustainable Development Goals

Water shortages caused by poor water quality severely affect the sustainable social and economic development of Tianjin City and Tangshan City in China. The Panjiakou Reservoir is located in the Luanhe River mainstream and provides water to the public in both cities since 1983. The evolution of water quality and aquatic community structure in the Reservoir and interactions with the social and economic development of its surroundings (Tangshan City and Chengde City) were analyzed. The relations between these changes and the various interrelated Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were also evaluated. From 1984 to 2019, the overall trend of total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), chemical oxygen demand (CODMn), and ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N) concentrations first increased and then decreased with economic growth. The organisms with strong ecological adaptability and pollution resistance became dominant species in the aquatic community. These included chlorophyta, cyanophyta and bacillariophyta among phytoplankton, copepods among zooplankton, and tubificidae and chironomidae among zoobenthos. The completion of Panjiakou Reservoir satisfied the water demand of Tianjin City and Tangshan City as well as benefited the economic and social development of the surroundings. However, high levels of pollutants produced by cage fish culture, mineral processing, and tourism threatened the water environment, which would in turn harm society and the economy. Therefore, fish cages were removed and other environmental protection measures were implemented to ensure the safety of drinking water. This study demonstrated that considering comprehensively the individual needs inside and across catchments to minimize trade-offs and maximize synergies was of great significance for coordinating the relations among society, economy, and water resources to achieve sustainable development at the sub-national scale.

The impact of skills and training on local development

The impact of skills and training on local development

Monitoring land degradation and assessing its drivers to support sustainable development goal 15.3 in Central Asia

Land degradation has become one of the most critical environmental and socioeconomic issues in the world, particularly in Central Asia. Moreover, the realization of Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) in Central Asia faces enormous challenges in achieving the global Sustainable Development Goal 15.3 (SDG 15.3). It is critical to monitor land degradation and assess its drivers in Central Asia. In this study, an Optimal Land Degradation Index (OLDI) was established as a new index for monitoring land degradation using a constrained optimization algorithm. The spatiotemporal characteristics of LDN were monitored in Central Asia. Further analysis explored the driving force of land degradation in different areas. The results showed that 7.22% and 15.33% of the total land area exhibited land improvement and land degradation, respectively. According to abrupt change analysis, mutation changes in the OLDI were observed in 2005, 2012 and 2015. At the subnational scale, most regions in Central Asia have not achieved the goal of LDN. The residual analysis highlighted the drivers of spatial differences in land degradation performance in Central Asia. Drought was the main driving force affecting land degradation by the compound effect of decreased precipitation and increased temperature on the Ustyurt Plateau, while 24.01% of the land degradation areas resulted from anthropogenic disturbances and were mainly distributed in the areas surrounding the Aral Sea. The results also indicated that 72.56% of the land improvement areas resulted from human activities and were mainly concentrated in the Balkhash Lake Delta and the Amudarya Delta. In Central Asia, the realization of SDG 15.3 by 2030 remains a severe challenge. Restoration measures should be prioritized in land degradation areas in Central Asia to implement the LDN initiative, especially around the Aral Sea.

The application of soft systems thinking in SDG interaction studies: a comparison between SDG interactions at national and subnational levels in Colombia

Since the approval of the Agenda 2030, researchers and policy makers have pointed out the need to understand interactions among the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—suggesting that progress or the lack of progress toward one goal will affect other goals through systemic interactions, producing synergies and trade-offs. However, most of the methods used to account for these interactions rely on hard systems thinking approaches, which are limited by the absence of needed data below national levels. Moreover, a general lack of data also constrains the scope of analysis to the 17 Goals, ignoring their 169 underlying targets. Given these challenges, we report on an experiment using an example of a soft systems thinking methodology: the SDG Synergies approach, which is based not only on available information but also on the elicitation of stakeholder and expert opinions. Thus, the approach allows for analysis of target-to-target interactions at subnational scales. The study, the first of its kind, assessed interactions at two scales: the national level in Colombia and the subnational level in the department of Antioquia. The results reveal profound differences between the two scales, suggesting that national-scale analysis of SDG interlinkages is not certain to capture local-level realities. The findings raise important issues for understanding and managing cross-scale interactions. Our work suggests that soft systems thinking is more appropriate for assessing SDG interactions because such an approach lends itself to conducting target-level analysis at various scales in the face of limited data availability.

Modelling Physical Accessibility to Public Green Spaces in Switzerland to Support the SDG11

Urban sprawl has a strong impact on the provision and use of green spaces and, consequently, on the benefits that society can derive from these natural ecosystems, especially in terms of public health. In looking at the Sustainable Development Goals and other regional policy frameworks, there is a strong need for quantifying access to green spaces. This study presents and applies a methodology to model the physical accessibility at national and sub-national scales to public green spaces (i.e., urban green spaces and forests) in Switzerland, using AccessMod and ArcGIS travel time functions. We found that approximately 75% and 36% of the Swiss population can access the nearest urban green space within 5 min and 15 min, respectively, using motorized transport. For motorized access to the nearest forest patch, 72% and 52% of the population are within 5 min and 15 min, respectively. When considering only the main urban areas, approximately 55% of the population can walk to the nearest urban green space within 5 min. However, a high heterogeneity in access exists at cantonal and municipal levels, depending on road density, green space density, and population distribution. Despite some possible challenges in correctly delineating public green spaces, our methodology offers a replicable approach offering not only insights into sustainable urban development, but also the facilitation of comparison with other European countries.

The spatial diffusion of fertility decline in Egypt (1950\u20132006)

While the Egyptian fertility transition has been widely addressed in the literature, few researches have studied the spatial dimension of fertility. Using population census data, the aim of this study is to describe and measure the evolution of the geography of fertility on a subnational scale (qism/markaz), focusing on the period between 1960 and 2006. We assumed that the decline in fertility had spread spatially through Egypt, the spatial diffusion occurring through two traditional mechanisms: contagion and hierarchical diffusion. Our results confirm our hypotheses and highlight the importance of studying the spatial diffusion of the fertility transition. This study is unique for the Egyptian context given the long period and fine territorial scale considered. Our study constitutes an important addition to the existing group of studies on the spatial diffusion of fertility. Finally, it contributes to gaining further insight into a demographic dynamic which is fundamental for the future of Egypt.

A framework for investigating the land degradation neutrality – Disaster risk reduction nexus at the sub-national scales

Specific guidelines are needed to overcome dichotomous classifications of lands into degraded or not for leveraging the Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) concept. Overlooking degrading lands or those at risk of degradation can block LDN. Therefore, this paper proposes a detailed land classification method, and complements LDN with an indicator α (wildfires, landslides and insights on aridity). Indicator α taps the rarely studied LDN-natural hazards nexus. For separating degrading, degraded and non-degraded lands, twelve categories were defined, and indicators were then established. Subsequently, a land potential-hazard informed LDN intervention was planned. These methods target sub-national scales via the Lebanese/Mediterranean Aley district. Findings first revealed that Aley's land cover developed without considering land potential or hazard potentiality. Second, land status categories are distributed as 65% stable (of which 20.18 are lightly used), 8.14% non-degraded (adequately used, recovered and improving), 13.67% degraded, and 13.13% at risk of degradation. However, the district risks shifting towards less healthy land states due to unplanned development and natural hazards inconsideration. Accordingly, the LDN intervention targeted the stable/lightly used, at risk of degradation-/lightly used, overused and lightly used lands for optimization. This approach shifted 33.33% of Aley to adequately used lands, increasing the latter from 8.05% to 41.38%.

Ideologies of English in Asia: an editorial

Abstract That English has spread in Asia is well-known, but this critical reflection, and the five contributions and book review that we hereby introduce, contribute to rectifying the relative absence in the sociology of language literature of studies approaching language ideologies and practices in specific Asian contexts from local perspectives. We are not alone; our inspections of journal archives show that scholars are increasingly responding to this relative absence in recent years. What this special issue offers is further diversity of both authors and cases, and moreover this special issue draws attention to the immutable, binary structure underlying the various globally-circulating discourses of the East and the West as part of investigating how socially constructed East-West binaries interact with language ideologies about English and other languages. It shifts the attention from fixity – East versus West – to diversity, extending East to Easts and West to Wests as our contributors identify and examine multiple, endogenous “imaginative geograph[ies]” (from Arif Dirlik’s [1996] “Chinese history and the question of Orientalism”, History and Theory 35(4): 97) constructed through various Orientalist ideologies. It founds this approach on a combination of the theory of recursive language ideologies and critical Orientalism scholarship. This is generative of new and useful sociolinguistic analyses. Having laid out this theoretical extension, this editorial then provides an overview of the issue’s contributions, which examine how socially constructed East-West binaries are interacting with language ideologies about English and other languages on sub-national scales in various Asian contexts including in Korea, China, Japan, Tajikistan and Pakistan.

Blue food demand across geographic and temporal scales

Numerous studies have focused on the need to expand production of ‘blue foods’, defined as aquatic foods captured or cultivated in marine and freshwater systems, to meet rising population- and income-driven demand. Here we analyze the roles of economic, demographic, and geographic factors and preferences in shaping blue food demand, using secondary data from FAO and The World Bank, parameters from published models, and case studies at national to sub-national scales. Our results show a weak cross-sectional relationship between per capita income and consumption globally when using an aggregate fish metric. Disaggregation by fish species group reveals distinct geographic patterns; for example, high consumption of freshwater fish in China and pelagic fish in Ghana and Peru where these fish are widely available, affordable, and traditionally eaten. We project a near doubling of global fish demand by mid-century assuming continued growth in aquaculture production and constant real prices for fish. Our study concludes that nutritional and environmental consequences of rising demand will depend on substitution among fish groups and other animal source foods in national diets.

A place-based approach to population sustainability: Demographic and economic change at the local level in Fife, Scotland

Population sustainability is a prevalent yet nebulous concept within academic and policy debates surrounding the nature and consequences of demographic and economic change. This research seeks to add nuance to understandings of population sustainability in ageing societies. The fiscal challenges posed by population ageing mean that more and more states are implementing specific policies in response to it, with limited degrees of success thus far. This investigation examines place-based understandings of population sustainability on the part of local stakeholders in a region of Scotland, a country facing significant demographic challenges and which is enacting policy measures specifically aimed at promoting population sustainability. The findings suggest that the on-the-ground realities of population sustainability are nuanced and complex. As such, there is scope for greater attention to the diversity and complexities of population and economic change at the sub-national scale in broader academic conceptualisations of and policy responses to the increasingly pressing issue of population sustainability.

Fuel‐Specific Carbon Footprint Embodied in Japanese Household Lifestyles

AbstractTo comprehensively investigate how regional household contribute to national carbon emission, this paper evaluates both the direct and indirect Japanese household carbon‐based emissions by using an environmentally extended input‐output table as well as the regional household consumption inventory. The results indicate that the household sector is the key driving force behind Japan's emissions, and it accounts for approximately 80% of the country's total emissions when indirect emissions are included. Moreover, significant regional differences exist in terms of the carbon footprint, which is in part caused by household and fuel‐type differences found across the country. Finally, this paper suggests that the impact of regional household and fuel‐type differences on Japan's overall carbon footprint should be a primary focus when practitioners design customized strategies to decarbonize Japan at the subnational scale.

Recent changes in cropland area and productivity indicate unsustainable cropland expansion in Malawi

Cropland expansion is a common strategy for boosting agricultural production in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) even though it often leads to economic, environmental, and social trade-offs. Ensuring sustainable cropland use and their management is critical for improving food security and preserving ecosystem services. To develop policies and approaches that support sustainable cropland management at national and sub-national scales, there is a need to understand the spatial distribution of cropland expansion (/loss), and any resultant changes in cropland productivity. This is especially important in SSA countries such as Malawi, where spatially explicit assessments of changes in cropland area and cropland productivity are lacking. To address this gap in Malawi, we used multi-source satellite data and socio-economic data, combined with satellite image classification and trend analysis, firstly to quantify spatial changes in cropland area and productivity, and secondly to evaluate potentially available cropland for future expansion. We found evidence of unsustainable cropland use in Malawi, which was demonstrated by: (a) rapid cropland expansion between 2010 and 2019 (increase 8.5% of land area), characterized by an expansion of crop farming into upland areas which indicate increased land scarcity in Malawi; (b) limited potential for future expansion, as approximately only 5% of the total land remained as potentially available cropland (corresponding to 4671 000 ha); and (c) an overall reduction in cropland productivity and a prevalence of increase in soil erosion. Our findings underscore the urgent need for taking measures to promote sustainable cropland use, including by protecting current cropland from further degradation (e.g. Southern Malawi) and improving cropland use planning (e.g. Northern Malawi).

Cutting through the noise on negative emissions

Cutting through the noise on negative emissions

Dataset of the mountain green cover index (SDG15.4.2) over the economic corridors of the Belt and Road Initiative for 2010-2019

ABSTRACT Mountains are undergoing widespread changes caused by human activities and climate change. Given the importance of mountains, the protection and sustainable development of mountain ecosystems have been listed as the goals of the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. As one of the indicators, the Mountain Green Cover Index (MGCI) datasets can provide consistent and comparable status of green vegetation in mountainous areas, which can support the mapping of heterogeneous mountain ecosystem health and monitoring changes over time. The production of explicitly high-spatial-resolution MGCI datasets is therefore urgently needed to support the protection measures at subnational and multitemporal scales. In this paper, the MGCI datasets with 500-meter spatial resolutions, covering the economic corridors of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), were developed for 2010 to 2019 based on all available Landsat-8 data and the Google Earth Engine cloud computing platform. The validation of green vegetation cover with the ground-truth samples indicated that the datasets can achieve an overall accuracy of 94.06%, with well-detailed spatial and temporal variations. The archived datasets include the MGCI of each BRI economic corridor, matched to a geospatial layer denoting the economic corridor boundaries. The essential information of the datasets and their limitations, along with the production flow, were described in this paper. The published geospatial datasets are available at http://www.doi.org/10.11922/sciencedb.1005.

Road injury burden in Mexico 1990 to 2019: Secondary data analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study

Road injuries have been a major cause of premature mortality and disability in Mexico. The objective of this paper is to report the findings from the Global Burden of Disease study (GBD-2019) on road injuries in Mexico at a national and subnational scale from 1990 to 2019, and to assess the association between road injury burden and the socio-demographic index. Following the 2019 Global Burden of Disease study road injury mortality, premature mortality, the years lived with disability and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) are reported. While the number of deaths from road injuries increased between 1990 and 2019, the age-standardized mortality rates declined. Pedestrian road injuries and motor vehicle road injuries accounted for 8 of every 10 deaths from road injury in 2019. Road injury mortality and DALY rates decreased nationally, but stagnated since 2011. The road injury burden was higher for men in all age groups. Pedestrian and motor vehicle road injuries caused the highest DALY rate in both males and females. There was no significant association between the SDI and the road injury age-standardized DALY rates. This study presents a comprehensive report of road injury burden of disease in Mexico. Mexico continues to have an incomplete, fragmented and poorly enforced legislative framework, with a large diversity between its 32 states. Thus, an integrated legislative and juridical effort is needed to continue reducing the road injury disease burden, which is tailored for specific age groups, vulnerable road users and high-burden areas.