•We present a framework to examine social equity and justice in resilience plans.•Recognition and inclusion of disadvantaged groups is essential, but neglected.•Participating cities are distributed ...unevenly across Global North and South.•Emphasis on inequality has been piecemeal across participating cities.•We make recommendations for integrating equity into global urban experiments.
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and associated Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) view resilience, sustainability, and social equity as being inherently linked. However, several critical scholars have cautioned that theories of resilience fail to address issues of equity, justice, and power, which potentially puts these goals at odds with one another. To date, we have limited empirical evidence testing these theoretical claims. In 2013, the USA-based Rockefeller Foundation pioneered 100 Resilient Cities (100RC), a network of cities dedicated to building resilience in urban areas. Critical engagement with the outputs and “lessons learned” from this program, particularly around how participating cities operationalize concepts of equity and justice, is important and timely given the scale and influence of this global urban experiment.
Using directed and summative content analysis of 31 100RC “City Resilience Strategies” from Global North and South countries, we examine the extent to which participating cities focus on social equity in their narratives, and whether justice is operationalized in the strategies’ embedded actions. Actions featuring a focus on inequality and justice are piece-meal across the Strategies, suggesting that the decision to prioritize or ignore equity may not be a direct result of the 100RC program offerings. Furthermore, we identify a number of threats to social equity and justice that appear in the program itself, and its resultant City Resilience Strategies. We conclude by making recommendations that could enable future large-scale urban experiments to promote equity and justice more universally across member cities.
Summary
Forests are a major component of the global carbon cycle, and accurate estimation of forest carbon stocks and fluxes is important in the context of anthropogenic global change. Airborne laser ...scanning (ALS) data sets are increasingly recognized as outstanding data sources for high‐fidelity mapping of carbon stocks at regional scales.
We develop a tree‐centric approach to carbon mapping, based on identifying individual tree crowns (ITCs) and species from airborne remote sensing data, from which individual tree carbon stocks are calculated. We identify ITCs from the laser scanning point cloud using a region‐growing algorithm and identifying species from airborne hyperspectral data by machine learning. For each detected tree, we predict stem diameter from its height and crown‐width estimate. From that point on, we use well‐established approaches developed for field‐based inventories: above‐ground biomasses of trees are estimated using published allometries and summed within plots to estimate carbon density.
We show this approach is highly reliable: tests in the Italian Alps demonstrated a close relationship between field‐ and ALS‐based estimates of carbon stocks (r2 = 0·98). Small trees are invisible from the air, and a correction factor is required to accommodate this effect.
An advantage of the tree‐centric approach over existing area‐based methods is that it can produce maps at any scale and is fundamentally based on field‐based inventory methods, making it intuitive and transparent. Airborne laser scanning, hyperspectral sensing and computational power are all advancing rapidly, making it increasingly feasible to use ITC approaches for effective mapping of forest carbon density also inside wider carbon mapping programs like REDD++.
This paper presents the findings of a study on digital maturity in higher education institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Empirical research was conducted in 2020. Teachers from eight public ...higher education institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina were included in the sample. The findings revealed that digital transformation has been ongoing in these institutions for some time, that some results have been achieved, but that digital maturity has not yet been attained. The findings also revealed barriers that must be overcome in order to accelerate digitalization and reap the anticipated benefits.
•We examine regional differences in innovation efficiency.•Large-network regions efficient in commercialization.•Public-focused regions efficient in technology development despite smaller ...networks.•Combining public R&D policy with network building helps regional innovation.
Although central governments are expanding research and development (R&D) investment in peripheral areas in many countries, interregional differences in innovation efficiency remain an unsolved problem. Hence, we evaluate the regional efficiencies of technology development and commercialization in South Korea using two-stage data envelopment analysis. This study first calculates the efficiencies, and then uses the efficiency values to test the hypotheses. Using nonparametric tests, we analyze whether the two contextual factors of innovation network size and public R&D, cause differences in the regional innovation efficiencies. The results show that commercialization efficiency is statistically higher in regions where the innovation network is larger than average. In particular, technology development efficiency is higher in regions where R&D is more public-focused than average, even though the local innovation network is small. The findings indicate that governments should consider policies combining public investment with network building to improve efficiencies and generate technological and commercial value from regional innovation.
Agritourism is known to play a pivotal role when providing diversification of farm activities, making in such way for sustainable regional and local development. However, it should be stated that in ...Ukraine agritourism has not received proper attention in the pre-war and current period. This paper explores the landscape of agritourism in Ukraine across pre-war and current periods, assessing its potential for the country advancement. The research involves the analysis of data on agriculture and tourism obtained from the World Bank, Ukrainian authorities, and agritourism association leaders. We also delve into 62 Ukrainian legislative and program documents to highlight institutional barriers and existing issues. The findings reveal that agritourism occupies minor position within robust agricultural sector in Ukraine, accompanied by notable regulatory gaps, nevertheless it possesses significant institutional and policy implications. We demonstrate that fostering agritourism in Ukraine can play a vital role in enhancing the sustainability of farms by broadening their range of activities. This holds particular importance in the context of the post-war economic recovery in Ukraine. Agritourism, operating at the intersection of agriculture and tourism, has high potential to generate positive effects in Ukraine not only on the agricultural sector but also on the country sustainable development. As a result of the investigation, the paper substantiates possible institutional changes (at the macro-, regional, and local levels) necessary to relaunch agritourism in Ukraine successfully.
•Agritourism functions on the borderline between tourism and agriculture producing impact on sustainable development of local communities.•Agritourism demonstrates large potential for creating social networks, diversifying farms profit, boosting regional economies.•Ukrainian agriculture and food systems face dramatic challenges due to the Russian invasion and will require rebuilding after the war.•Agritourism activities can be a key element to ensure the economic and social viability of farms and regions in post-war Ukraine.
Agritourism is an important supplementary activity in agricultural regions, attracting numerous visitors in search of new experiences and providing alternative incomes to those in rural areas. Whilst ...tourism literature has progressed in defining and characterising agritourism, there continues to be limited knowledge concerning what contributes directly and indirectly to enhancing and deepening the agritourism experience, particularly the role of visitor-provider interaction and the emotional connection to place. In this paper, we address this gap by exploring agritourism in Western Australia, drawing on a survey of providers and ten semi-structured interviews. We find that agritourism was comprised of four key experiential dimensions (location, authenticity, interaction, and learning) differentiated by six contextual factors which are either endogenous or exogenous to the provider. Our findings show how the agritourism experience can be curated, contributing to the establishment of a better understanding of how providers can improve visitor experience and the attraction of rural areas. The research offers a framework for understanding the role of location as a cross-cutting experiential dimension to better inform policymakers, regional development agencies and agritourism providers in developing agritourism ‘products’ that may increase visitor numbers and sales, improve regional development outcomes, and enhance rural understandings.
•Agritourism is an increasingly important for rural economies.•There is limited understanding on how agritourism relates to unique local and regional contexts.•Agritourism experiential dimensions (location, authenticity, interaction, and learning) are framed by six provider factors.•Highlights location as a cross-cutting ad important dimension in improving regional development.
As an innovative financial model that promotes sustainable economic development, green finance is an important means to promote the adjustment of my country's energy consumption structure. This paper ...proposes corresponding policy recommendations based on the theoretical and empirical analysis results of the impact of green finance on the energy consumption structure of different regions in my country. Research indicates:(1) From a national perspective, the development of green finance is positively correlated with the structure of energy consumption, indicating that the improvement of the level of green finance development will effectively promote the adjustment of energy consumption structure, indicating that green finance has an obvious positive effect on the adjustment of energy consumption structure. The coefficient of economic development level is positive, and energy prices are positively correlated with energy consumption structure, but the overall impact is weak. The industrial structure and energy consumption structure are negatively correlated, but the significance test is not passed. Foreign direct investment and energy consumption structure have a significant negative correlation. (2) From a regional perspective, in eastern region，the level of green finance development has a positive impact on the energy consumption structure of the eastern region and the control variables of economic development level, energy prices and industrial structure are not significant, but foreign direct investment has a positive impact on the energy consumption structure of the eastern region; in the central region, the development level of regional green finance has a positive impact on the energy consumption structure, but it is not significant, and the level of economic development, energy prices, and industrial structure are not significant, but foreign direct investment has a significant negative impact on the energy consumption structure of the central region; in the western region, green finance has a positive impact on the energy consumption structure, but the significance is not passed test, and the level of economic development, energy prices, industrial structure and foreign direct investment are significant. The policy recommendations based on the impact of the development of green finance on the energy consumption structure derived from the research of the thesis are helpful to provide a reference for my country's green finance to promote the adjustment of energy consumption structure.
•Secledted the system GMM model.•Analyzed the relationship between green finance and energy consumption structure.•Studied the difference of Chinese regions.•Provided theoretical reference for improving energy structure.
Abstract
This paper explores roles and interests of stakeholders in scaling up purun woven agroindustry as an alternative livelihood for people on peatlands. If the agroindustry serve well, purun ...plants on peatlands would be preserved and tension to burn peatland for other economic purposes is reduced. This research was conducted through a survey in Menang Raya Village, Pedamaran District, Ogan Komering Ilir Regency, South Sumatera, Indonesia. Samples were purposively taken involving purun artisans and ten institutions related to the agroindustry. Analysis employed Importance Performance Analysis. Stakeholders were facilitators, regulators, implementers, evaluators, and advocators. Several interests were identified, namely economic, social, political, and environmental interests. Key stakeholders were Provincial Forestry Service, National dan Regional Peatland Restoration Agency, and local NGOs. Stakeholders were empowered by District Cooperatives and MSMEs Office, Provincial and Regional Planning Development Agency, Universities, and International NGOs. Follower stakeholders involved local communities. The form of partnership between stakeholders and the purun woven industry was mutualistic. The results suggested that doable strengthening strategies for scaling up purun woven agroindustry were (1) regulatory formulation, (2) strengthening the role of stakeholders, and (3) institutional structuring.
In this paper we consider the experience of implementing the Smart Specialisation Strategy (S3) in three regions in Finland, Norway and Denmark. We highlight the challenges each of these 'strong ...innovator' regions has faced in implementing S3. We elucidate the fact that each region faced different challenges when implementing S3. We extend a discussion around place-based policy, which is designed in a regionally bespoke and bottom-up manner, suggesting that this will inherently throw up unique and variable place-based challenges, questioning how to balance this uniqueness of problems with a universally applicable approach and support infrastructure.
Long‐range precipitation forecasting is crucial for flooding control and water resources management. However, making precise forecasting is rather difficult due to the complex climatic factors and ...large uncertainties arising from long lead times. Sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA) is one of the strongest signals that influence regional precipitation, often used for the development of precipitation forecasts. Traditional models using SSTA for precipitation forecasting usually screen SSTA over fixed oceanic zones and neglect its preceding temporal fluctuation information. In this study, we introduce a multipole SSTA index and the preceding fluctuation modes of SSTA to develop a monthly precipitation forecasting model, which is applied to the upper Yangtze River basin in China where monthly precipitation during May–October for the period of 1961–2020 are forecasted. Results show that more significant SSTA poles correlated with precipitation are found for September than for the other months. The new approach is able to forecast monthly precipitation for May–October in the basin, particularly for September. It outperforms traditional statistical and dynamical models and has much more skill in forecasting precipitation for June–September when heavy precipitation is more likely to occur than for May or October. Our approach enriches the knowledge of the relationship between precipitation and SSTA, which is conducive to the improvement of long‐range precipitation forecasting.
Distributions of antecedent multipole SSTA impacting monthly precipitation during May–October over the upper Yangtze River basin. A tripole mode of SSTA is found for May and August precipitation. Large and continuous spatial extent of SSTA across the Indian Ocean and the eastern Pacific is found for September precipitation.
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