Identifying irrigation strategies that improve agricultural water use efficiency (WUE) have a pivotal role to play in sustainable water development. In this study, the AquaCrop model was used to examine the impact of different irrigation scheduling options on yields to identify viable strategies to enhance WUE for irrigated maize. Two scheduling scenarios at water application depths ranging from 20 to 50 mm were investigated: schedules based on allowable depletion of total available water (TAW) in the root zone and interval schedules based on irrigating at predefined daily intervals. For both scenarios, simulated yields, seasonal water applied and percent percolation loss were within the range of 9.16 to 10.22 ton/ha, 180 to 950 mm and 0–61%, respectively. The WUE in terms of water applied (WUE_Irr) and crop evapotranspiration (WUE_ET) ranged from 1.07 to 5.48 kg/m³ and 2.42 to 4.42 kg/m³, respectively. The results revealed that depletion levels of 40–50% TAW at water depths of 20–40 mm could be used to obtain high WUE without significant yield penalty. Moreover, a good balance between yield, improved WUE_ET and percolation reduction was observed at water depths of 30–40 mm for daily intervals with water applied during the vegetative-reproductive stage of 7–5, 10–5 and 10–7. The identified strategies can contribute to the development of best management practices for water conservation. Full article

Soil organic carbon (SOC) plays an essential role in the early stages of pedogenisis and ecological restoration in reclaimed mine soils. Dynamic changes in the SOC content are essential for assessing the quality of reclaimed mine soils and the effect of ecological restoration. To objectively assess the carbon dynamics of reclaimed soils, we selected the surface (0–20 cm) soil of farmland under agricultural use (soybean–wheat rotation) from a reclamation chronosequence (R4: 4 years of reclamation, R7: 7 years of reclamation, R10: 10 years of reclamation and R13: 13 years of reclamation) in the Dongtan Mining Area, Shandong Province, China. The adjacent normal, unaffected farmland was used as a control (CK). The results showed that the SOC content gradually increased with the reclamation age until it reached 7.98 g·kg⁻¹ for R13, which accounted for 76% of that of the CK. However, the total carbon contents of the reclaimed soils did not significantly differ from and even appeared higher than that of the CK. This is mainly because the inorganic carbon contents of the reclaimed soils ranged from 2.98 to 12.61 g·kg⁻¹, all of which were significantly higher than the 0.87 g·kg⁻¹ obtained for the CK. The microbial biomass carbon (MBC) content and the microbial quotient significantly increased with the reclamation age of the soil, and both parameters were markedly higher for R13 than for the CK. The dissolved organic carbon (DOC) content and its ratio to the SOC were significantly higher for R4–R13 than for the CK and DOC/SOC gradually decreased with the reclamation age. Both the reclamation age and the temperature had positive effects on the soil basal respiration (SBR). The SBR rate constantly increased with the reclamation age and was markedly higher at 25 °C than at 15 °C. The temperature sensitivity (Q₁₀) of the SBR showed a clearly decreasing trend for the reclamation chronosequence, but its value remained higher for R13 than for the CK (2.37). The metabolic quotient constantly decreased with the reclamation age, which suggests that the survival pressure imposed on soil microbes by the soil environment gradually decreased. These results indicate that it takes a long time for organic carbon to accumulate in reclaimed mine soil and that rational agricultural use contributes to sustained improvement of the quality of reclaimed soil. Full article

The biogeophysical effects of land cover change (LCC) on land surface temperature are largely understood, especially in tropical and boreal zones, but fewer studies have reported the biogeophysical consequences of ecological restoration of mining areas located in arid and semi-arid temperate zones. In this study, we employed 2000–2015 satellite-based net radiation (Rn) and latent heat flux (LE) data from mining areas (taking Dongsheng in Inner Mongolia as an example) and adjacent ecological restoration areas to understand the biogeophysical effect of revegetation around mining areas. The results showed that revegetation increased Rn (0.25 ± 0.17 W/m²) and LE (0.43 ± 0.26 W/m²). The warming effect of increased Rn (∆Rn), however, was completely offset by the cooling effect of increased LE (∆LE), thus revegetation caused an overall cooling effect of −0.18 ± 0.17 W/m². Land surface temperature (LST) from mining areas and adjacent ecological restoration areas also showed that revegetation decreased LST (∆LST being −0.2 ± 0.1 K). The difference of ∆Rn and ∆LE explained 27% of the ∆LST variations. These findings reinforce our understanding for the potential climatic benefits of the ecological restoration around mining areas in arid and semi-arid temperate zones. Full article

Recently, the development of the Internet of Things (IoT) applications has become more active with the emergence of low-power wide-area network (LPWAN), which has the advantages of low-power and long communication distance. Among the various LPWAN technologies, long-range wide-area network (LoRaWAN, or LoRa) is considered as the most mature technology. However, since LoRa performs uplink-oriented communication to increase energy efficiency, there is a restriction on the downlink function from the network server to the end devices. In this paper, we propose cooperative downlink listening to solve the fundamental problem of LoRa. In particular, the proposed scheme can be extended to various communication models such as groupcasting and geocasting by combining with the data-centric model. Experiments also show that the proposed technology not only significantly reduces network traffic compared to the LoRa standard, but also guarantees maximum energy efficiency of the LoRa. Full article

This paper presents an expert evaluation of the subsidy scheme for private forest plantations in Kami City, Kochi Prefecture, Japan, to determine whether the twelve currently available subsidies are designed to realize national biodiversity goals. Subsidies for forestry practices are often criticized for rarely achieving planned outcomes and for environmental threats. Threats to natural balance of private forest have been observed in Kochi Prefecture, suggesting that current forestry subsidies may not be achieving national objectives. The utilization objectives, type of management, requirements, area, intensity, and subsidy rates were contrasted to the three forest multifunctionality objectives of the National Biodiversity Strategy of Japan (NBSJ) 2012–2020, to identify subsidy weaknesses. Focus group discussions (FGD) were conducted in the study site, as well as Bavaria, Germany and Steiermark, Austria, to get a big picture of how experts in these comparable management areas evaluate the Kochi subsidy scheme. Analyses were performed based on a combination of framework analysis and constant comparison analysis. It was found that realization of vertical multifunctionality is hindered due to lack of site-specific management. A six-point proposal for restructuring the subsidy scheme, leaned on results, and the Bavarian subsidy scheme was made. To improve vertical multi-functionality, subsidy schemes should focus on forest owner integration and site-specific, long-term oriented forest works. Full article

Due to the increasing waste generation over the years in China, there is an urgent need to addressing this major problem by implementing effective household waste separation programs. Although past studies have tried to explain the waste behaviour from social and psychological motivations, there is little understanding as to the impact of individual moral obligation and past experience on forming waste separating intention. The aim of this study is to investigate key determinants influencing household waste separation intention and behaviour. Based on the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) model, we designed a survey questionnaire by taking account of determinants including residents’ attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control, moral obligation, past behaviour, and demographic factors, with the prediction of household waste separation behaviour in mind. After obtaining 628 valid questionnaires from households in the city of Hangzhou, the partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of each construct. The results indicate that subjective norms, perceived behavioural control, past behaviour and intention significantly predict household waste separation behaviour, with past behaviour being the most significant construct to predict individuals’ intention and behaviour. Additional analysis on the moderating effect of different kinds of people in terms of their genders, ages, income levels and perceived policy effectiveness, to further evoke household waste separation behaviours is also discussed. The findings suggest insightful future policies that can focus on residents’ habit formation by providing the convenient location of waste separation and collection facilities, encouraging market-driven recycling programs and traders, promoting community campaigns and education which help residents to form favourable habits for protecting the environment. Full article

Stakeholder theory is a major approach to research on sustainability management. Firm characteristics, including corporate governance and business characteristics, can be represented in terms of their effects on stakeholders. In this study, a multi-regression model is used to examine the relationship between firm characteristics and the disclosure of sustainability reporting for the Taiwan 50 Index-listed companies. Least-squares regression, panel data regression, and logistic regression analyses are applied. The results show that seven corporate governance and business characteristics, namely the size of the board of directors, ratio of independent directors, audit committee, ratio of export income, percentage of foreign shareholders’ holdings, fixed asset staleness, and firm growth are positively related to the disclosure of sustainability reporting, whereas the percentage of director holdings and stock price per share are negatively related to the disclosure of sustainability reporting. This study supports the notion that stakeholder involvement is related to the disclosure of sustainability reporting. Full article

Decisions made at early stages of the design are of the utmost importance for the energy-efficiency of buildings. Wrong decisions and design failures related to a building’s general layout, shape, façade transparency or orientation can increase the operational energy tremendously. These failures can be avoided in advance through simple changes in the design. Using extensive parametric energy simulations by DesignBuilder, this paper investigates the impact of geometric factors for the energy-efficiency of high-rise office buildings in three climates contexts: Amsterdam (Temperate), Sydney (Sub-tropical) and Singapore (Tropical). The investigation is carried out on 12 plan shapes, 7 plan depths, 4 building orientations and discrete values for window-to-wall ratio. Among selected options, each sub-section determines the most efficient solution for different design measures and climates. The optimal design solution is the one that minimises, on an annual basis, the sum of the energy use for heating, cooling, electric lighting and fans. The results indicate that the general building design is an important issue to consider for high-rise buildings: they can influence the energy use up to 32%. For most of the geometric factors, the greatest difference between the optimal and the worst solution occurs in the sub-tropical climate, while the tropical climate is the one that shows the smallest difference. In case of the plan depth, special attention should be paid in the case of a temperate climate, as the total energy use can increase more than in other climates. Regarding energy performance, the following building geometry factors have the highest to lowest influence: building orientation, plan shape, plan depth, and window-to-wall ratio. Full article

Smart home technologies offer exciting opportunities to promote more efficient uses of energy. For instance, programmable thermostats, centralized lighting controls, and rooftop solar panels all have potential for energy conservation and efficiency. However, these technologies alone will not guarantee energy savings. Whereas previous research on smart homes has focused on the technologies themselves, relatively little work has addressed the factors that shape the human-technology interface. In this review paper, we argue that in order to ensure any savings, smart home technologies must first be adopted by end-users, and once adopted, they must be used in ways that promote energy efficiency. We focus on three areas of behavioral research with implications for smart home technologies: (1) defaults; (2) perceived adjustability or control; and (3) trust in automation. Linking these areas, we propose a new concept for improving the efficiency gains of smart homes. First, although smart device controls can help save energy, considerably larger energy efficiency gains can be realized through smart automation. But importantly, the default settings of systems should be “green”, to maximize energy savings. Second, many people have concerns around relinquishing decision-making to technologies, which can reduce the likelihood of adoption. People want to be, or at least to feel, in control of their homes, even if they do not adjust settings post-installation. Further, consumer trust in technologies encourages adoption in the first place; trust also impacts consumer interactions with installed devices and can impact default acceptance. Combining these concepts, we recommend that smart home technologies build consumer trust and come pre-programmed with adjustable green defaults, which permit consumers to change initial green settings. Full article

The technology of freezing saline water irrigation (FSWI) with plastic mulching has been regarded as an effective way to reclaim the highly saline soil in coastal plains, which enabled the growth of crops in heavy saline soil that was not suitable for any crop growth before. However, after long-term treatment with FSWI, the microenvironment of the soil has been found to be affected by the growth of crops, which will directly influence the balance of soil carbon emissions. In this study, the characteristics of soil respiration in a typical saline field (planted with cotton) under four treatments (FSWI in Winter with plastic mulching, FSWI + Mulch; FSWI in Winter without plastic mulching, FSWI; plastic mulching in Spring without FSWI, mulch; no plastic mulching and no FSWI, CK) were investigated between June and November from 2015 to 2016. The results suggested that the soil surface temperature was an important factor that affected the soil respiration rate in each treatment during the growth period of cotton. FSWI + Mulch can reduce the soil surface salinity to 0.4% during the seedling stage, which increased the survival rate and the abundance of bacteria, fungi, and actinomycetes in the cotton field and subsequently increased soil respiration. By examining the effects of FWSI and mulching on soil respiration and its influencing factors, this study provides practical and theoretical insight into the sustainable development of agriculture in coastal saline plains. Full article

Yields of rainfed potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) in China’s semiarid region are restricted by limited precipitation. Climate change could cause significant fluctuation in the rain-fed agricultural production due to the spatiotemporal changes in temperature and precipitation. As adjusting sowing dates proved to be an important management technique for improving grain yields, we examined how potato production can be improved by altering planting date in China’s semiarid region, thus improving potato adaptation to climate change. Field trials with five target sowing dates (from late April to early June) were carried out in Inner Mongolia, China during four growing seasons (2010–2013), and the effects of sowing dates on potato development, yield and water use efficiency (WUE) were estimated. Results showed that although delayed sowing shortened the duration of potato growth period, non-significant thermal time differences after flowering stage was found among the treatments. However, greater precipitation was shown in three intermediate treatments. Potato yield was significantly affected by sowing dates, and intermediate sowing dates showed greater yield compared to the earlier or later sowing dates. Delayed sowing dates significantly improved WUE in a drier year. As for a normal year, earlier sowing dates promoted WUE because of less water consumption, but these increases came at the cost of reducing yields. Under the current climate conditions in the study area, the flexible sowing time for potato was determined as from early May to early June, and optimum sowing time was between 10 May and 27 May. In conclusion, adjusting sowing date affected duration, thermal time, and precipitation over potato growth period, and the optimal sowing date exhibited higher yield by obtaining greater precipitation, which could improve potato adaption to climate change. Full article

As one of the basic industries supporting the national economy development and energy demand, the refining industry is expected to provide combustion energy, reduce pollution emission, and improve utilization efficiency. With more stringent requirement for environmental protection, refining enterprises have to insist on the sustainable development to achieve industrial optimization. Evaluation of the sustainability of enterprises can help them understand their situation more objectively and guide them to establish modes for sustainable development. In this study, the evaluation system is firstly built from perspectives of economic, ecological, and social sustainability, including six second-grade indexes and seventeen third-grade indexes, which can accurately reflect the entire sustainability contents of refining enterprises. Then, a DEA-based model is constructed, which selects seven input indexes (e.g., the asset–liability ratio and comprehensive energy consumption per unit of output) and nine output indexes (e.g., return on assets, asset turnover, and science and technology investment strength). The DEA-based model can not only objectively evaluate the sustainability level, but also find out the restriction factors for further optimization. Third, to demonstrate the validity of the model, 15 enterprises are selected for case studies, among which only four are identified as having strong sustainability. For the other 11 enterprises, projection analyses are implemented, and the DMU values of three enterprises characterized by low efficiency are adjusted to find out the restriction factors, which reflect the model’s efficiency and its potentially wide application in the future. Finally, specific suggestions are proposed for the enhancement of sustainability of refining enterprises. Full article

Jakarta has been experiencing severe land subsidence over the last few decades. A questionnaire survey of local inhabitants revealed that seawater is already overtopping coastal dykes and flooding a vulnerable community along Jakarta’s waterfront. The present study projects coastal floods around Jakarta until the year 2050 to understand the long term effectiveness of proposed dykes under continuing rapid land subsidence scenarios. This is done through a hydrodynamic model that considers land subsidence, sea-level rise, and tides. The analysis confirms that, if high enough, coastal dykes will help to prevent flooding, though their effectiveness will eventually disappear as land subsidence continues. For example, a 3-m dyke, which is expected to be sufficiently high to cope with present-day conditions, could completely lose its ability to stop floods by the year 2040. Moreover, higher dykes can also bring about other problems, because if they are overtopped, they actually prolong flooding, essentially trapping a higher volume of water inland. On the other hand, a small 1-m dyke can be expected to stop coastal floods if land subsidence can be stopped. This study demonstrates that actions to stop land subsidence would be the most effective countermeasure to mitigate coastal floods from the middle of the 21st century onwards, emphasizing the need to prioritize such actions among the range of countermeasures being proposed for Jakarta. Full article

Near infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS), a non-destructive and rapid analytical method, was used to examine the possibility of replacing a method for the large-scale screening of tomato seed viability. A total of 368 tomato seed samples were used for development and validation of an NIRS calibration model. The accelerating aging method (98 ± 2% R.H., 40 °C) was employed for preparation of a calibration set (n = 268) and a validation set (n = 100) with wider seed viability. Among the tomato NIRS calibration models tested, the modified partial least square (MPLS) regression produced the best equation model. Specifically, this model produced a higher RSQ (0.9446) and lower SEC (6.5012) during calibration and a higher 1-VR (0.9194) and lower SECV (7.8264) upon cross-validation compared to the other regression methods (PLS, PCR) tested in this study. Additionally, the SD/SECV was 3.53, which was greater than the criterion point of 3. External validation of this NIRS equation revealed a significant correlation between reference values and NIRS-estimated values based on the coefficient of determination (R2), the standard error of prediction (SEP (C)), and the ratio of performance to deviation (RPD = SD/SEP (C)), which were 0.94, 6.57, and 3.96, respectively. The external validation demonstrated that this model had predictive accuracy in tomato, indicating that it has the potential to replace the germination test. Full article

Energy transition is one of the greatest challenges for sustainability. However, the overall composition of the world energy supply has not changed much since the late 1970s, with fossil fuels providing 81% of the world’s total primary energy supply. While political leaders increasingly call for proactive policies to innovate the energy sector in the face of climate change, governments around the world commit vastly different levels of budgets to energy R&D. This research examines the potential determinants of cross-national variations in government budget allocations for energy R&D with three perspectives. With the panel data analysis of OECD countries (1974–2012), we check the supply-side, demand-side, and institutional factors inducing government investment in R&D for energy in general as well as for renewable energy. Among the multitude of factors tested in our analysis, gross domestic R&D expenditure, refinery output, and the rightist orientation of the governing party show significantly positive influences on government R&D budgets for energy in general. However, refinery output shows the negative effect on government R&D budget for renewables. This contrasting finding about the impact of refinery output on government investment in energy R&D in general vs. renewable energy R&D suggests that policymakers and scholars need to better appreciate the complex roles of the oil sector in driving public R&D investment in energy. It also calls for more proactive renewable energy policy to make progress towards sustainable energy transition. Full article