Global urban and rural settlement dataset from 2000 to 2020.

Accurate mapping of global urban and rural settlements is crucial for understanding their distinct expansion patterns and ecological impacts. However, existing global datasets focus mainly on urban settlements and ignore the delineation of rural settlements. Therefore, this study proposed a framework for delineating between urban and rural settlements based on dynamic thresholds defined by area and light brightness and constructed the first global 100-meter resolution urban and rural settlements dataset (GURS) spanning from 2000 to 2020, integrating GHS-BUILT-S R2023A, NPP-VIIRS-like nighttime light, and OpenStreetMap data.

International Trade Reshapes the Decoupling of Emissions from Economic Growth.

Efforts to stabilize the global climate change while also continuing human development depend upon "decoupling" economic growth from fossil fuel CO emissions. However, evaluations of such decoupling have typically relied on production-based emissions, which do not account for emissions embodied in international trade. Yet international trade can greatly change emissions accounting and reshape the decoupling between emissions and economic growth.

How many people can the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau hold, and how large cities can be built in recent hundred years?

The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) serves as a vital barrier for both national security and ecological preservation. Overpopulation and urban sprawl pose threats to its ecological security, while underpopulation and small urban cities also undermine national security. Hence, optimizing population distribution and urban development on the QTP is crucial for bolstering the national security perimeter and ensuring basic modernisation across China.

Unequal prefecture-level water footprints in China: The urban-rural divide.

Water is vital for inclusive human well-being and economic growth, but water and its benefits are not equally distributed to all. The water gap between city dwellers and rural folks was not well understood. In this paper we assessed prefecture-level urban and rural water footprints (WFs) in China, using an improved multi-region input-output (MRIO) table with resolved urban and rural final consumption data.

Agricultural HANPP Embodied in Consumption: Tracing Pressure on Ecosystems Based on an MRIO Analysis.

Agriculture is one of humankind's most significant sources of biomass; it also places tremendous pressure on ecosystems through its increasing demand for agricultural products. However, few studies have assessed human pressures on ecosystems from agricultural production and consumption based on a whole-supply-chain perspective. Based on the concept of human appropriation of net primary productivity (HANPP), we evaluate trends of agricultural HANPP embodied in consumption from a global perspective and trace the pressure from agriculture production that is exerted on the environment using an environmentally extended multiregional input-output (MRIO) model.

GHG emissions and energy consumption of residential buildings-a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Residential buildings generate significant greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and consume energy throughout their life cycle. In recent years, research on GHG emissions and energy consumption of buildings has developed rapidly in response to the growing climate change and energy crisis. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is an important method for evaluating the environmental impacts of the building sector.

Impact of International Trade on the Carbon Intensity of Human Well-Being.

There has been a longstanding debate about the impact of international trade on the environment and human well-being, yet there is little known about such environment and human well-being trade-off. Here, we explore the effect of international trade on the carbon intensity of human well-being (CIWB) globally under the current global trade system and a hypothetical no-trade scenario. We found that between 1995 and 2015, CIWB of 41% of countries declined and 59% of countries increased, caused by international trade, and this resulted in a reduction of the global CIWB and a decline in CIWB inequality between countries.

Governance matters: Urban expansion, environmental regulation, and PM2.5 pollution.

Increasing PM2.5 pollution in urban expansion threatens citizens' health. Environmental regulation has proven to be an effective tool to directly combat PM2.

Water footprint of nations amplified by scarcity in the Belt and Road Initiative.

The growing water scarcity due to international trade poses a serious threat to global sustainability. Given the intensified international trade throughout the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), this paper tracks the virtual water trade and water footprint of BRI countries in 2005-2015. By conducting a multi-model assessment, we observe a substantial increase in BRI's water footprint after taking water scarcity into account.

Spatial-temporal evolution and driving force analysis of eco-quality in urban agglomerations in China.

Urban agglomerations are important spatial carriers of regional economic development, and their ecological quality (EQ) is closely related to economic growth and human development. However, the rapid urbanization in China has generated a series of EQ problems that threaten the sustainable development of the country. Therefore, it is essential to explore changes in EQ for the development of sustainable "human-land" relations in urban agglomerations.

Spatio-temporal interaction heterogeneity and driving factors of carbon emissions from the construction industry in China.

Global warming caused by carbon emissions has become a major issue that countries need to address. As the largest carbon emitter globally, the construction industry is one of the major contributors to carbon emissions in China. It is of significance for carbon reduction to study carbon emission from construction industry.

How does urbanization affect energy carbon emissions under the background of carbon neutrality?

Global climate change caused by increasing carbon emissions has raised great concern. Urbanization is regarded as one of the main sources of carbon emissions. Studying the effect of urbanization process on carbon emissions is of great significance to realize sustainable development under the background of carbon neutrality.

How Neighborhood Characteristics Influence Neighborhood Crimes: A Bayesian Hierarchical Spatial Analysis.

Urban crimes are a severe threat to livable and sustainable urban environments. Many studies have investigated the patterns, causes, and strategies for curbing the occurrence of urban crimes. It is found that neighborhood socioeconomic status, physical environment, and ethnic composition all might play a role in the occurrence of urban crimes.

Global impacts of future urban expansion on terrestrial vertebrate diversity.

Rapid urban expansion has profound impacts on global biodiversity through habitat conversion, degradation, fragmentation, and species extinction. However, how future urban expansion will affect global biodiversity needs to be better understood. We contribute to filling this knowledge gap by combining spatially explicit projections of urban expansion under shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) with datasets on habitat and terrestrial biodiversity (amphibians, mammals, and birds).

Public perceptions of physical and virtual water in China.

Ensuring access to water is one of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. Water demand management, which has emerged as an important approach to secure water supply, should be underpinned by a good understanding of how the public perceive their use of water. In this study, we investigated public perceptions of physical and virtual water in China through online surveys using the multi-level regression models (two-level models).

Observing the silent world under COVID-19 with a comprehensive impact analysis based on human mobility.

Since spring 2020, the human world seems to be exceptionally silent due to mobility reduction caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. To better measure the real-time decline of human mobility and changes in socio-economic activities in a timely manner, we constructed a silent index (SI) based on Google's mobility data. We systematically investigated the relations between SI, new COVID-19 cases, government policy, and the level of economic development.

Spatial Characterization of Urban Vitality and the Association With Various Street Network Metrics From the Multi-Scalar Perspective.

In the context of rapid urbanization in developing countries, the spatial organization of cities has been progressively restructured over the past decades. However, little has been done to understand how the physical expansion affected the reorganization of socioeconomic spaces in cities. This study explores the association between various street network metrics and urban vitality and how it changes across different scales using geographic big data through a case study of Wuhan, China.

Conjugate evaluation of sustainable carrying capacity of urban agglomeration and multi-scenario policy regulation.

The scientific evaluation of carrying capacity and the formulation of adaptive regulation policies are powerful ways to achieve sustainable development goals. In order to quantitatively and accurately diagnose the sustainable development state of urban agglomeration, this paper responds to the "Future Earth" framework; takes the carrying capacity as the breakthrough point; embeds the conjugate thought; considers the elements of the resources, the environment, the ecology, and the development; and establishes the conjugate evaluation model and the evaluation index system of sustainable carrying capacity. In order to solve the actual bottleneck problem of urban agglomeration, this work identifies the key obstacle factors, constructs the multi-scenario dynamic coupling (MSDC) model, recognizes the sensitivity policies, and proposes the adaptive regulation polices.

The influence of environmental efficiency on PM pollution: Evidence from 283 Chinese prefecture-level cities.

Environmental inefficiency caused by the extensive economic growth pattern is considered a critical driver of the unprecedented PM (fine particulate matter) pollution in China. However, the nexus between environmental efficiency and PM concentrations has rarely been examined. We used a recently developed data envelopment analysis method to measure environmental efficiency, environmental total factor productivity, and their compositions in China at the prefecture level from 2003 to 2013 and examined the effects of environmental efficiency on PM pollution.

Assessing environmental performance of eco-industrial development in industrial parks.

While driving the regional economy, industrial parks also pose great threats to natural environment due to large quantities of resource consumption and intensive pollutants emissions. Eco-industrial development, including cleaner production, bioproducts or waste interchange, and infrastructure sharing, is key to improving the parks' environmental quality and sustainability. However, how to measure the performance of eco-industrial development is an essential and hard work since the material and energy flows are complex and cannot be compared in various units.

Dynamics of the surface thermal landscape (STL) in northern slope of central Tianshan mountains, Xinjiang, NW China from 2000 to 2018.

Using the 2000-2018 MODIS Land Surface Temperature (LST) data and taking 11 cities (counties) in the northern slope of the central Tianshan Mountains in northwestern China as the study area, the spatial-temporal characteristics, landscape indices, centroid, and geo-information Tupu (carto-methodology in geo-information, CMGI) of surface thermal landscape (STL) were analyzed, and the paper draws the following results: (1) There are great differences in the diurnal and seasonal STL. The higher thermal levels are distributed more northerly in spring, summer, and autumn, and more southerly in winter. (2) In terms of class type level and landscape level, different landscape indices show different characteristics in diurnal and seasonal thermal landscapes.

Analysis of sustainable utilization of water resources based on the improved water resources ecological footprint model: A case study of Hubei Province, China.

Sustainable utilization of water resources has become a crucial topic worldwide. Study of the water resources ecological footprint (WEF) has important theoretical and practical significance for the management and optimal allocation of water resources. The current WEF model does not consider the differences between regions because it uses uniform equalization and yield factors.