Greening the Belt and Road Initiative: Evidence from emergy evaluation of China's provincial trade with ASEAN countries.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a central policy within China's regional development and foreign trade strategy. Traditional trade has typically depended on economic valuation of resources, while the embedded environmental value is rarely considered. This situation exists in most BRI trade evaluations. To address BRI environmental sustainability issues, we consider the role of pivotal Chinese provinces and their key trade partners (ASEAN countries) as an illustration for the environmental value of resource exchanges. Emergy accounting is used as the valuation tool for a sample period of seventeen years. Key results include: (1) Emergy valuations show sustainability of sample provinces decreased over time; (2) ASEAN countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam play significant resource roles for provincial economic systems; (3) Diverse trends in trade between pivotal provinces and ASEAN countries resulted in an unbalanced trade structure from trade. Policy implications are proposed to promote a more globally sustainable and fair trade using BRI as an established trade policy.

Hidden challenges behind ecosystem services improvement claims.

Substantial evidence indicates that China's afforestation statistically contributed to the ecosystem services (ES) improvement. However, we found the potential challenges behind this improvement, especially in water-limited areas. We propose an attribution analysis method, which can assess the specific contribution of natural, human and cognition degree drivers to ES dynamics. The results found that the ratio of natural and human drivers in the area north of China's 400 mm precipitation isopleth is 2:7. This means local vegetation capacity has already exceeded water limitation, implying a conflict between nature and humans. However, the natural contribution in the area between 400 and 800 mm precipitation isopleth is negative, whereas the human contribution is 91%. This means this area has fragile natural conditions and needs more flexible policies. The ratio of natural and human drivers in the region south of 800 mm precipitation isopleth is 6:3, suggesting the ecological policies here can be maintained.

Revisiting Keynes in the Light of the Transition to Circular Economy.

The study briefly recalls the evolution and crisis of the theory and thought of John Maynard Keynes with the rise and progressive dominance of the neoliberalism paradigm. The exercise has been made for evaluating the effects of such process for the sustainability of the global economy and society. In this view, we explored how Keynes' contribution could be useful for the global economy in building a new paradigm of socio-economic development underpinning the transition to circular economy (CE). We also evaluated the adoption of the Global Green New Deal including a case study of Italy for the purpose of suggesting how that topical political programme can be key in the CE transition. Given the urgency of environmental problems, we underline the importance of the adoption of Keynesian expansionary "green mission oriented" fiscal policies with the purpose of allowing the triggering of a virtuous circle of sustainable welfare involving the Green New deal and the transition to CE. At the basis of such virtuous circle, we propose a new paradigm based on a revisited Keynesian paradigm and models of economy within the framework of Genovesi's "civil economy" that entails an active role and responsibility of all the societal actors (consumers, companies and institutions). In this view, the "spirit" of Keynes in the economy, policy and society could be appreciated once more and be extremely useful along with other scholars' contributions in accelerating the CE transition and a more sustainable development.

Energy constrains to increasing complexity in the biosphere.

Thirty years ago, the systems ecologist Howard T. Odum introduced the concept of transformity, which is a thermodynamic measure of quality within the trial and error evolutionary dynamics of ecosystems, namely an indicator of rank in the hierarchical system structure of the biosphere. Based on a global database of individual processes and whole economies, this paper extends, refines, and updates Odum's idea, demonstrating the strength of the postulated relation. In particular, an inverse linear logarithmic relationship is shown to hold between resource quantity (exergy) and quality (emergy), which is the result of an overall energetic efficiency characteristic of energy transformation processes of the biosphere. This relation extends from natural renewable energy sources to human information (including global internet data flows) and know-how embedded in national economies, thus identifying a consistent theory of hierarchical organization of the biosphere grounded in energetics and ultimately setting constraints to illusions of unlimited growth.

Simulations of scenarios for urban household water and energy consumption.

The expansion of cities and their impacts currently constitutes a challenge for the achievement of sustainable development goals (SDGs). In this respect, assessments of resource consumption and the delivery of appropriate policies to support resource conservation are of paramount importance. Previous works in the literature have focused on one specific resource (e.g., water, energy, food) at the household level, while others have analysed the inter-relations among different resources (i.e., the nexus approach) at larger spatial scales (e.g., urban level). Moreover, household behavioural attitudes are generally excluded while assessing resource consumption scenarios. This work overcomes previous limitations by proposing a causal-loop structure derived from the literature, from which simulations of different scenarios can be generated that consider the nexus between food, energy and water at the household level. These simulations can provide alternative scenarios to assess the impacts of monetary policies as well as education and communication actions on the enhancement of resource savings and consider both their current use and household preferences. The metropolitan area of Napoli was chosen as the testbed area for the simulations. The results, in relation to the testbed, proved that communication actions would be most appropriate to increase the level of resource savings. The business-as-usual scenario was especially sensitive to variations in individual preferences towards pro-environmental behaviours and showed their higher impacts on the results. Improvements of this method and its derived scenarios in the context of the urban planning process could support the implementation of informed policies towards the conservation of key resources and promotion of sustainable citizen behaviour.

Evaluation and simulation of the impact of land use change on ecosystem services based on a carbon flow model: A case study of the Manas River Basin of Xinjiang, China.

Land use change affects ecosystem services by changing the structure and function of ecosystems. Carbon flows throughout natural and socioeconomic systems can effectively reveal this process. The Manas River Basin has experienced rapid oasis expansion for decades, and land use change in the basin is very typical. Oasis expansion has caused a large amount of cropland to invade natural vegetation, thus affecting ecosystem services. This study used a biomass-based ecosystem service estimation model to assess changes in ecosystem services in the Manas River Basin. The carbon flow model was constructed using energy systems language, and the future development of ecosystem services was simulated based on different land use scenarios. The results show the following: (1) From 1980 to 2015, the river basin provisioning service was continuously optimized, while the regulating, supporting and cultural services were reduced. (2) If the expansion of cropland continues, then carbon will be transferred from the natural ecosystem to the cropland. Regulation, support and cultural services in the basin continue to decrease. Due to the shortage of water resources in the basin, the growth of provisioning services is limited. (3) If the project of returning cropland to grassland is implemented, then the carbon in the natural ecosystem will gradually recover. The regulating, supporting and cultural services of the river basin are rising, but provisioning services are gradually decreasing. In general, the model based on energy systems language can reflect the ecological process within the system and effectively reveal the carbon flow process between ecosystems. The use of carbon to quantify ecosystem services can harmonize dimensions, facilitate comparisons, and mitigate errors in outcomes due to different evaluation criteria or subjective factors. Therefore, this study combines energy systems language with carbon flow, which helps to more rationally explore the impact of land use change on ecosystem services, thereby providing valuable information for river basin management.

Pb2+ Effects on Growth, Lipids, and Protein and DNA Profiles of the Thermophilic Bacterium Thermus Thermophilus.

Extremophiles are organisms able to thrive in extreme environmental conditions and some of them show the ability to survive high doses of heavy metals thanks to defensive mechanisms provided by primary and secondary metabolic products, i.e., extremolytes, lipids, and extremozymes. This is why there is a growing scientific and industrial interest in the use of thermophilic bacteria in a host of tasks, from the environmental detoxification of heavy metal to industrial activities, such as bio-machining and bio-metallurgy. In this work Thermus thermophilus was challenged against increasing Pb2+ concentrations spanning from 0 to 300 ppm in order to ascertain the sensitiveness of this bacteria to the Pb environmental pollution and to give an insight on its heavy metal resistance mechanisms. Analysis of growth parameters, enzyme activities, protein profiles, and lipid membrane modifications were carried out. In addition, genotyping analysis of bacteria grown in the presence of Pb2+, using random amplified polymorphic DNA-PCR and DNA melting evaluation, were also performed. A better knowledge of the response of thermophilic bacteria to the different pollutants, as heavy metals, is necessary for optimizing their use in remediation or decontamination processes.

On the Relationship between Economic Development, Environmental Integrity and Well-Being: The Point of View of Herdsmen in Northern China Grassland.

Inner Mongolia is among the most important regions in terms of contribution to the socio-economic development of China. Furthermore, its grassland is a major ecological barrier for Northern China. The present study evaluates the changes in ecosystem services availability and human wellbeing based on a survey on864 herdsmen of the grassland and 20 governmental officials. The survey provided the following results: (1) The supporting and provisioning services of the grassland have recently declined, thus affecting the herdsmen's wellbeing. The intensity of grazing, coal exploitation and tourism development heavily limits the availability of ecosystem services, among which provisioning ones are perceived as the most important. Below a certain threshold, grazing and mining are likely to promote the improvement of herdsmen's wellbeing, while trespassing that point, the enhancement of the herdsmen's living standards is curbed. (2) The herdsmen's cultural exchange, health conditions and social relations are better now than before; however, the threats on herdsmen's health and safety have increased. (3) A better income is among the most urgent herdsmen's needs. Livestock revenues did not increase at the same rate as the damage to the grassland and human risk exposure did. (4) The governmental ecological compensation policy did not entirely solve the problem of grassland desertification and environmental degradation, although it is also true that the degree of implementation and effectiveness of government policies is related to the still insufficient herdsmen's understanding and acceptance of these policies.

The worth of land use: a GIS-emergy evaluation of natural and human-made capital.

Natural systems make their natural capital and ecosystem services available to human economy. A careful analysis of the interplay between natural and human-made capital is needed to prevent natural capital being overexploited for present economic benefits, affecting lifestyles and wellbeing of future generations. In this study, the emergy synthesis is used to evaluate the natural and the human-made capital of Campania region (southern Italy) by accounting for the environmental support directly and indirectly provided by nature to resource generation. Furthermore, geographic information system (GIS) models are integrated with the emergy accounting procedure to generate maps of the spatial patterns of both natural and human-made capital distribution. Regional storages of natural and human-made capital are identified and evaluated in emergy units (seJ). The human-made capital of the Campania region (6.29E+24seJ) results to be about 11 times higher than the natural capital (5.69E+23seJ) due to the past and present exploitation of the natural resources needed to generate it over time. Moreover, by overlaying the total natural capital map and the total human-made capital map with a map of the protected areas within the region, only the 19% of the regional natural capital appears to be concentrated within protected areas, while most of it (81%) is concentrated outside. These findings suggest that the conservation of natural resources is also necessary outside protected areas by means of suitable policies, directives and investments. The human-made capital is mainly concentrated (88%) inside non-protected areas and interacts with the local natural capital. A management of the interactions between the two categories of wealth is crucial to prevent that the growth of human-made storages degrades the natural ecosystems and the environment. The proposed emergy-GIS framework reveals to be a useful tool for environmental planning and resource management aimed to conserve and protect the regional environmental heritage.

Monitoring trends of urban development and environmental impact of Beijing, 1999-2006.

The high rates of environmental change and accelerated species loss in the urban development process should be quantified to rebalance the social and environmental dimensions of sustainability. In this study, an emergy-based environmental impact assessment model is designed according to the framework of the Eco-Indicator 99 for monitoring the negative effects on human well-being and ecosystem integrity in the urban development system of Beijing from 1999 to 2006. The environmental impact assessment model is based on the sustainability promotion perspective, and emphasizes the determinants of human health and ecosystem integrity in the urban development process. It is vital that the links among human health, ecosystem integrity and urban sustainability are therefore considered especially from the perspective of a supply-side environmental cost evaluation (including ecological service supply, ecological and economic losses and investment for treatment). Results suggest that: (1) out of all the pollutants, ecological services were mainly used to dilute sulfur dioxide and NH(3)-N; (2) nitrogen dioxide and greenhouse gases released by the urban system contribute heavily to both ecological and economic losses evaluated in emergy terms; and (3) emissions impact, mainly from airborne pollutants, with small contribution from waterborne emissions, generally increases from 1999 to 2006, undermining the sustainability of Beijing. The emergy synthesis proves to be very appropriate to account for large-scale and indirect costs generated by pollution as side effects of economic activity. Such knowledge is a necessary pre-requisite to perform a reliable cost-benefit evaluation of urban sustainability strategies, and provide guidance for policy decision making to maximize benefits and minimize negative impacts.

Exploring an urban system's dependence on the environment as a source and a sink: the city of Rome (Italy) across space and time scales.

The material, energy and environmental flows supporting the growth and welfare of the city of Rome, during a recent forty-year period (from 1962 to 2002) were investigated in order to understand the resource basis of its present welfare and lifestyle. The study focused on the local scale of the urban system (resources actually used within the system's boundary) as well as on the larger regional and national scales where resources come from. Assessing the resource use change over time allowed to understand what are the main drivers of lifestyle changes of the local population. In particular, while the direct, local-scale use of the main material and energy resources exhibits a quadratic growth over time, the total (direct+indirect) consumption on the scale of the global economy is always 3-4 times higher, is so highlighting how much of a city's growth depends on economic and production activities that develop outside of its boundaries. Water use shows an even more alarming trend, in that the indirect consumption grows much faster, suggesting a shift from the use of a less water-intensive mix of products to a different mix that requires much more water in its industrial production. Such trend calls for increased awareness of the water footprint of goods used as well as increased efficiency in water management by both industries and households. The evolution of resource use and standard of living also affects the release of airborne emissions, an issue that is becoming crucial due to concerns for climate change and urban air pollution. The extent of such additional environmental burden is also explored in the present paper.

Emergy analysis of an industrial park: the case of Dalian, China.

With the rapid development of eco-industrial park projects in China, evaluating their overall eco-efficiency is becoming an important need and a big challenge academically. Developing ecologically conscious industrial park management requires analysis of both industrial and ecological systems. Traditional evaluation methods based on neoclassical economics and embodied energy and exergy analyses have certain limitations due to their focus with environmental issues considered secondary to the maximization of economic and technical objectives. Such methods focus primarily on the environmental impact of emissions and their economic consequences. These approaches ignore the contribution of ecological products and services as well as the load placed on environmental systems and related problems of carrying capacity of economic and industrial development. This paper presents a new method, based upon emergy analysis and synthesis. Such a method links economic and ecological systems together, highlighting the internal relations among the different subsystems and components. The emergy-based method provides insight into the environmental performance and sustainability of an industrial park. This paper depicts the methodology of emergy analysis at the industrial park level and provides a series of emergy-based indices. A case study is investigated and discussed in order to show the emergy method's practical potential. Results from DEDZ (Dalian Economic Development Zone) case show us the potential of emergy synthesis method at the industrial park level for environmental policy making. Its advantages and limitations are also discussed with avenues for future research identified.

The material and energy basis of Rome: an investigation of direct and indirect resource use through material flow, energy and footprint methods.

Results from this study of stability/sustainability conditions of an urban system show that an average citizen of Rome, in one year, uses directly or indirectly as much as 45 tons of abiotic material (minerals, raw fuel, topsoil). Out of such an abiotic flow, about 6.5 tons of fuel per person are required, while the Italian nationwide average is 3.6 tons per year. In addition, 816 tons of water are indirectly used or diverted from their natural pattern in support of individual food, electricity and commodity demand. Despite the scarce 0.05 Ha of productive land available per capita, each citizen in Rome virtually "uses" 4.51 Ha of productive land. Each Roman releases in one year 20 tons CO(2), 50 kg CO, 36 kg NO(x) and 24 kg SO(2), and generates about 450 kg of solid waste, thus contributing in several ways to environmental pollution. Finally, to generate 100 euro of local GDP requires 29 kg of raw oil, an amount that is only paid about 10 euro in the international market.

Life cycle assessment of urban waste management: energy performances and environmental impacts. The case of Rome, Italy.

Landfilling is nowadays the most common practice of waste management in Italy in spite of enforced regulations aimed at increasing waste pre-sorting as well as energy and material recovery. In this work we analyse selected alternative scenarios aimed at minimizing the unused material fraction to be delivered to the landfill. The methodological framework of the analysis is the life cycle assessment, in a multi-method form developed by our research team. The approach was applied to the case of municipal solid waste (MSW) management in Rome, with a special focus on energy and material balance, including global and local scale airborne emissions. Results, provided in the form of indices and indicators of efficiency, effectiveness and environmental impacts, point out landfill activities as the worst waste management strategy at a global scale. On the other hand, the investigated waste treatments with energy and material recovery allow important benefits of greenhouse gas emission reduction (among others) but are still affected by non-negligible local emissions. Furthermore, waste treatments leading to energy recovery provide an energy output that, in the best case, is able to meet 15% of the Rome electricity consumption.