Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management

One of the causes of environmental degradation is human behaviour that destroys environment. This environmental phenomenon can arise from both the domestic and global spheres, where domestic means that it comes from the immediate environment and global means that it comes from a multinational environment. Knowledge of these two types of events is thought to be able to influence the desire to buy ‘green’ products and can be stronger if the environmental knowledge of the individual is also already strong. This study seeks to test the relationship of these variables using a video documentary stimulus and processing through structural equation modelling. The results show that environmental knowledge is much stronger in influencing domestic environmental concerns than global environmental concerns. In addition, the results also explain that global environmental concerns have a stronger influence on an individual’s decision to buy green products. Indonesian’s government should make a policy about increasing public service advertisement that provides information on global disasters to encourage the purchase of green products.

Drought is among the natural disasters that seriously impact the environment and human life. This study aims to explore the spatial pattern of drought using the percent of normal precipitation index (PNPI) in Fars Province, located in the Southern part of Iran. To this end, a drought risk model based on data from 42 stations in Fars province from 1990 to 2019 was evaluated. The model includes three criteria of maximum drought intensity in the period, drought trend, and a maximum number of consecutive dry years. The final drought risk map was obtained with an arithmetic mean of three indicators of intensity, continuity, and trend. The final hazard map and the 3-criteria map were interpolated by the inverse distance weighting (IDW) method and were classified into five risk classes: none, mild, moderate, severe, and very severe. The final vulnerability map shows that moderate hazard areas (5% of the region), which are observed in the Sothern parts of the region, are less widespread than areas under severe hazard (83% of the region), which are observed in almost all parts of the region. According to the final vulnerability map, about 94% of the area of Fars province is under severe and very severe conditions. Overall, this study, regarding its simplicity and considering different dimensions of drought, may be utilised as a basic framework to evaluate drought hazards for other locations worldwide. In this respect, it is necessary to study the multiple sights of this phenomenon for land use planning, resource management, and prevention of water and food crises. Therefore, this model can help users and administrations with executive initiatives.

Focus of the article is the pursuit by President Xi Jinping (2013–2021) of an aggressive policy of environmental protection and preservation with the ambitious goal of creating a ‘beautiful China’. Article begins with a summary of the rise to national leadership by Xi Jinping from a local and provincial leader to national prominence, and then examines the creation of central and local bureaucracies for policy implementation on the environment along with such initiatives as the system of ‘river chiefs’ to address the serious problem of waterway pollution. By tracing the transition to more environmentally friendly economic and industrial policies, government efforts are also described to foster greater environmental consciousness on the part of the Chinese public. The article concludes by weighing the accomplishments of the new policies along with various economic, institutional, and structural obstacles to achieving a ‘beautiful China’.

Technological singularity has seriously affected all the social, environmental, and economic genesis factors in mankind’s history. The problem of assessing the quality of life in the digital economy is acquiring new nuances including social services. The objective of this study is to investigate unique impacts of digital transformation on economic, environment, and social progresses on the quality of life improvement in China. Environmental statistical data on the impact of investments in social, state, and other spheres of economic activity are analysed at the machine learning level. Application of high-performance computing (HPC) and big data technologies for obtaining data on socio-economic statistics in real-time, the presence of feedback in the Web 4.0 concept, transfer of a significant part of economic processes to internet platforms provide the information necessary for analysis. As a result, a basis is proposed for implementing software products in the form of institutional decision-making support systems for a long horizon of planning investments in the quality of life.

Rapid urbanisation causes the ‘heat island’ problem in megacities worldwide. The industrialisation has fuelled the increase in the urbanisation in Indian cities. This work measures and characterises Ahmedabad’s heat island variations (India). The study uses two satellite passes of the MODIS sensor over the summer for the last three years to assess urban heat island intensity (UHII). Sentinel-2B records are used to create a land-use map. The study considers the impact of land-use patterns on summer UHII diurnal fluctuations. Daily diurnal changes in land surface temperature (LST) are being analysed. Locations and land-use land-cover patterns affect UHII. Satellite observations show greater LST values during the day than at night, however, UHII is stronger at night. Urban UHII is stronger rural UHII. Lower vegetation cover area is one of the key causes of UHII development, as seen in the region’s Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) values.