Asia

Elsevier,

Green Ports: Inland and Seaside Sustainable Transportation Strategies, Volume , 20 September 2018

This book chapter addresses SDG 9 and 13 by closely looking at how China's green port strategy can be seen as a model for other developed countries to alleviate waste, dust, and noise as part of port management.
This study assessed the carbon (C) budget and the C stocks in major compartments of the soil food web (bacteria, fungi, protists, nematodes, meso- and macrofauna) in an arable field with/without litter addition. The C stocks in the food web were more than three times higher in topsoil (0–10 cm) compared to subsoil (>40 cm). Microorganisms contained over 95% of food web C, with similar contributions of bacteria and fungi in topsoil. Litter addition did not alter C pools of soil biota after one growing season, except for the increase of fungi and fungal feeding nematodes in the topsoil.
Despite extensive literature on the complex nature of empowerment, current efforts to measure women's empowerment in the agricultural development sector are largely limited to assessing visible forms of agency. We take a critical look at current efforts to measure women's empowerment at the individual/household level through standardized tools. We examine the results of a household survey conducted in Nepal using the Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI), which was developed as a monitoring and evaluation tool for the Feed the Future Initiative.
In spite of the growing attention towards the overall quality of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), most empirical studies so far have narrowly focused their assessments on specific natural or social features and governing structures. In response, this study analyzed multi-use MPAs in the eelgrass restoration site in Hinase, Okayama, Japan in their environmental, economic and social dimensions. Considering changes in time and space as well as internal and external influences, the study faced many difficulties in dealing with the dynamics of MPA environments.
As emerging contaminants, antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) have become a public concern. This study aimed to investigate the occurrence and diversity of ARGs, and variation in the composition of bacterial communities in source water, drinking water treatment plants, and tap water in the Pearl River Delta region, South China. Various ARGs were present in the different types of water. Among the 27 target ARGs, floR and sul1 dominated in source water from three large rivers in the region.
China's Airpollution
Supporting Goal 11. Tightening environmental regulations in China to combat pollution will intensify supply-side pressures on its petrochemical industry which could drive up commodity prices
ICIS,

ICIS Chemical Business, 01 March 2018

Pollution in China
Supporting Goal 11. Tightening environmental regulations in China will pause before being replaced by plans for tougher curbs on smog levels during the two years until 2020
Poor air quality has extremely detrimental health consequences, including cancer, stroke, asthma or heart disease. Existing research on air pollution-induced environmental injustice (EI) in Hong Kong (HK) is based on sparse air pollution data due to the limited number of pollution monitoring stations, rendering the study of the relationship between air pollution exposure and social deprivation (SD), and the subsequent study of EI at finer geographical scales difficult.
To establish an estimation procedure for reliable catch amount of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, light-gathering fishing operations in the northwestern Pacific were analyzed based on the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) day/night band (DNB) data provided by the Suomi National Polar Partnership (SNPP) satellite. The estimated fishing activities were compared with the navigation tracks of vessels obtained from the automatic identification system (AIS).
Environmental concerns arising from the over-dredging of sand have led to restrictions on its extraction across India, with direct economic impacts on concrete construction. A suitable environmentally friendly alternative to sand must be found to match the huge demand from the concrete construction industry. At the same time, waste plastic is rarely recycled in India, with as much as 40% left in landfill. The dumping of such materials which degrade at extremely low rates meaning they persist in the environment is a long-term environmental concern.

Pages