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Rural Sustainable Environmental Management II
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Rural Sustainable Environmental Management II

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2021) | Viewed by 14494

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Chunjiang An

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Building, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Concordia University, Montreal, QC H3G 1M8, Canada
Interests: solid waste composting and digestion; waste utilization and resource recovery; advanced physiochemical and biological treatment; contaminant transport in multiphase; environmental risk assessment and management; synchrotron-assisted environmental process analysis; surface water and groundwater quality; environmental sustainability
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

It is our pleasure to announce that following the success of the first volume (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/special_issues/Rural_Sustainable_Environmental_Management), we are now hosting Volume II of the Special Issue on Rural Sustainable Environmental Management published in 2020.

Rural environmental protection has received increasing attention in recent years. The economic development and population growth of rural areas results in many problems such as environmental pollution, land degradation, resource depletion, biodiversity loss, income loss, and public health risks. These issues are particularly poignant in villages and remote regions of developing countries. The rural areas often lack required resources to take needed action. In areas with low population densities and dispersed households, many management strategies associated with centralized and urban regions are unsuitable for implementation. The development of the rural economy and the protection of the environment need to be well balanced with both short- and the long-term views. Of interest for rural areas are strategies that can be environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable. Although much progress has been made, many major challenges to rural environmental management remain to be addressed. How to deal with these problems through sustainable approaches has become an urgent issue in rural areas.

This Special Issue II will be dedicated to the perception of rural, sustainable environmental management based on the integration of economic, environmental, and social considerations. It aims to provide a summary of novel developments that can improve the awareness of and provide solutions to these environmental issues. This Special Issue II calls for original research and partial and full reviews, including perspectives on the field of the current standing of rural environmental management. Topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Sustainable rural water resources management
  • Rural water and wastewater treatment
  • Rural environmental risk assessment and vulnerability analysis
  • Rural solid waste disposal and management
  • The reduction of nitrogen and phosphorus loss from agricultural activities
  • Environmental best management practices for rural areas
  • Adaptation to climate change and the reduction of greenhouse gas emission in rural areas
  • Environmental statistics and multi-criteria decision analysis in rural environmental management
  • Rural environmental policy analysis
  • Rural ecosystem protection and biodiversity recovery
  • Computer graphics, GIS, and expert systems for supporting rural environmental decision making
  • Optimization and control of rural pollution mitigation processes
  • Agricultural resource utilization
  • Rural land management and planning
  • Monitoring and analytical techniques of rural environmental quality
  • Methods and applications of data mining and artificial intelligence to rural environmental studies
  • Methods and applications related to the integrated simulation, optimization, and management of rural resources, environmental and/or ecological systems
  • The characterization of emerging rural environmental problems and related solutions

Prof. Dr. Chunjiang An
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • rural environmental risk assessment and vulnerability analysis
  • rural environmental policy analysis
  • rural ecosystem protection and biodiversity recovery
  • agricultural resource utilization
  • adaptation to climate change and reduction of greenhouse gas emission in rural areas

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 974 KiB  
Communication
Exploring the Potential in LID Technologies for Remediating Heavy Metals in Carwash Wastewater
by Fatemeh Talebzadeh, Caterina Valeo, Rishi Gupta and C. Peter Constabel
Sustainability 2021, 13(16), 8727; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13168727 - 05 Aug 2021
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2266
Abstract
Carwash wastewater (CWW) can be a significant source of environmental pollution due to the diversity and high concentrations of contaminants it contains. This toxic wastewater can contain several different heavy metals that if left untreated, can enter surface and sub-surface waters. Innovative, nature-based [...] Read more.
Carwash wastewater (CWW) can be a significant source of environmental pollution due to the diversity and high concentrations of contaminants it contains. This toxic wastewater can contain several different heavy metals that if left untreated, can enter surface and sub-surface waters. Innovative, nature-based solutions such as low-impact development (LID) technologies may provide an eco-friendly CWW treatment process that is both effective and affordable. This research reviews the available literature to provide definitive values of flowrate and contaminant concentrations found in CWW around the globe. Dividing LID technologies into two groups, vegetated and unvegetated systems, the authors explored the literature for the general performance of these technologies to sustainably treat heavy metals in CWW. Depending on the car wash’s size and intended purpose, whether cleaning vehicles in agriculture-based rural communities, mining, or in high-density urban environments, volumetric flowrates requiring treatment found in six different countries ranged from 35–400 L/car. CWW also contains a wide range of contaminants at various levels, including COD, turbidity, TDS and TSS, surfactants, oils and greases, and heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, zinc, copper, chromium, and iron. Heavy metal removal by both vegetated and unvegetated LIDs shows mixed results in the literature, but given the different processes involved in both types, the authors propose a system that combines these types in order to provide all the necessary removal processes, including mechanical filtration, adsorption, sedimentation, chemical and biological treatment processes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Rural Sustainable Environmental Management II)
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14 pages, 3019 KiB  
Article
Temporal and Spatial Distributions of Waste Facilities and Solid Waste Management Strategies in Rural and Urban Saskatchewan, Canada
by Abhijeet Ghosh and Kelvin Tsun Wai Ng
Sustainability 2021, 13(12), 6887; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13126887 - 18 Jun 2021
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 2969
Abstract
Saskatchewan has the highest number of landfills per capita in Canada. Given the lower population density and the skewed spatial population distribution, comprehensive analysis of municipal solid waste management systems in Saskatchewan is inherently difficult. Most of the published waste studies however focus [...] Read more.
Saskatchewan has the highest number of landfills per capita in Canada. Given the lower population density and the skewed spatial population distribution, comprehensive analysis of municipal solid waste management systems in Saskatchewan is inherently difficult. Most of the published waste studies however focus on city-level waste management, and there is a lack of literature with respect to the rural areas. In this study, landfills and transfer stations are examined temporally and spatially using Geographic Information System. Landfills and transfer stations from 2017 and 2020 were plotted against census division land area, annual budget, and population density to study temporal changes. Saskatchewan witnessed a 54% reduction in the number of landfills and a 55% increase in number of transfer stations between 2017 and 2020. The replacement of landfills with transfer stations are more noticeable in divisions 8, 9, and 16. Regression analysis is conducted, and landfill closure operation show no obvious correlation to division land area, annual budget, or population density. Rural division 18, representing Northern Saskatchewan, has approximately 45% of the land area in the province and has the lowest population density. The findings suggest different waste management strategies are required for urban and rural areas. The results of this study will help policy makers to better implement solid waste management strategies in urban and rural areas. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Rural Sustainable Environmental Management II)
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13 pages, 2033 KiB  
Communication
Urban Sustainability at the Cost of Rural Unsustainability
by Guangwei Huang
Sustainability 2021, 13(10), 5466; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13105466 - 13 May 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2312
Abstract
Urban sustainability refers to building and maintaining cities that can continue to function without running out of resources. However, growing cities require more land and urban sprawl has transformed surrounding rural areas into urbanized settlements. Furthermore, the prosperity of large cities depends on [...] Read more.
Urban sustainability refers to building and maintaining cities that can continue to function without running out of resources. However, growing cities require more land and urban sprawl has transformed surrounding rural areas into urbanized settlements. Furthermore, the prosperity of large cities depends on the supply of both natural and human resources from rural areas, either nearby or remote. On the other hand, the use of resources of rural areas by cities may cause negative externalities to rural areas, affecting their sustainability. Therefore, a critical, but very much neglected issue, is how unban sustainability should be pursued without affecting rural sustainability. In this study, cases in Japan and China were analyzed from resources and population migration perspectives to provide evidence for the possibility that urban sustainability might have been pursued at the cost of rural unsustainability. It was intended to develop a better understanding of urban sustainability through the lens of externalities. Based on the analysis, a new framework for urban sustainability study was proposed, which consists of three new pillars. Namely, externality, vulnerability, and population instability. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Rural Sustainable Environmental Management II)
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15 pages, 2346 KiB  
Article
Classification of Rural Areas in Serbia: Framework and Implications for Spatial Planning
by Aleksandra Gajić, Nikola Krunić and Branko Protić
Sustainability 2021, 13(4), 1596; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13041596 - 03 Feb 2021
Cited by 24 | Viewed by 5728
Abstract
The classification of rural and urban areas presents an important topic both in scientific research and in the practice of spatial planning, regional policy making, and territorial governance. Taking into account the multidimensionality of these areas, this paper aims to provide a classification [...] Read more.
The classification of rural and urban areas presents an important topic both in scientific research and in the practice of spatial planning, regional policy making, and territorial governance. Taking into account the multidimensionality of these areas, this paper aims to provide a classification framework design for rural areas in Serbia. After selecting the relevant indicators, which were included to reflect the main demographic, economic, and physio-geographical characteristics of the Serbian rural areas, multivariate analysis (principal component method and factor analysis) was used to determine the main factors in the delimitation and classification of rural and urban areas. The last step of the conducted methodology used cluster analysis (CA) that identified six types of areas with similar characteristics. The results of this study and applied methodology can improve the existing rural–urban classifications and help planners and policy makers in the adaptation of strategic development documents. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Rural Sustainable Environmental Management II)
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