Small tradeoffs between social equity and conservation outcomes in a freshwater payment for ecosystem services scheme.

Conservation programs around the world aim to balance social equity, economic efficiency, and conservation outcomes. Tradeoffs among these three objectives necessarily exist but have been quantified in only a handful of systems. Here, we use a multi-objective mathematical optimization model in a large, water-limited river basin to quantify these tradeoffs in a freshwater payment for ecosystem services (PES) program aimed at establishing environmental flows (e-flows). Across a range of budgetary and future climate scenarios, we find that tradeoffs between social equity and conservation outcomes are small. We also show that payment schemes in which incentives are allocated to a single water use sector are much less cost-effective than schemes in which incentives are allocated among multiple sectors. Thus, allocating payments equally among agricultural, municipal, and industrial sectors can be both more equitable and more cost-effective. Overall, our results illustrate how some carefully designed conservation programs may be able to achieve a triple bottom line of social equity, economic efficiency, and conservation effectiveness.

Data analytics to evaluate the impact of infectious disease on economy: Case study of COVID-19 pandemic.

SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) is a new strain of coronavirus that is regarded as a respiratory disease and is transmittable among humans. At present, the disease has caused a pandemic, and COVID-19 cases are ballooning out of control. The impact of such turbulent situations can be controlled by tracking the patterns of infected and death cases through accurate prediction and by taking precautions accordingly. We collected worldwide COVID-19 case information and successfully predicted infected victims and possible death cases around the world and in the United States. In addition, we analyzed some leading stock market shares and successfully forecast their trends. We also scrutinized the share market price by proper reasoning and considered the state of affairs of COVID-19, including geographical dispersity. We publicly release our developed dashboard that presents statistical data of COVID-19 cases, shows predicted results, and reveals the impact of COVID-19 on leading companies and different countries' job markets.