• Energy Research
• 12. Responsible consumption close
• 6. Clean water close
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To help answer questions about availability, accessibility, sustainability and other dimensions of energy security, the vulnerability approach concentrates the attention of policymakers on the assessment of risks associated with natural, technical, political and economic factors. This understanding, combined with a focus on energy services (e.g. lighting, heating, telecommunications, mobility, etc.) helps to prioritize actions to achieve the goal of energy security. This paper conceptualizes energy security as low vulnerability of vital energy systems and sustained provision of modern energy services. Taking Tajikistan as a case, this paper highlights key vulnerabilities including neglect of environmental conditions, insufficient energy production capacity, unreliable and expensive energy imports, dwindling power infrastructure causing technical and economic losses, inadequate transparency in the power sector, lack of regional cooperation in energy and water resources sharing, and inadequate financial resources to address these challenges. Three major proposals presented by the World Bank, the United Nations Development Program, and the Government of Tajikistan to achieve energy security in Tajikistan are evaluated. Specifically, they lack a focus on energy services and therefore overlook people's socio-cultural context and appropriate energy needs. This paper highlights energy services as critical to people’s wellbeing and socio-economic development.

Based on a case study in central Kyrgyzstan, this paper examines the links between the environment, rural livelihoods, and labor migration. The low diversity of income-generating activities in rural areas increases vulnerability to climate change impacts, other environmental stresses, and market failures. As a result, additional livelihood strategies such as labor migration and engagement in trade or other business ventures have become essential coping strategies for rural households. Remittances sent by migrants contribute not only to individual rural households but also to rural community development. Remittances help repay loans that have been taken out by households for different purposes, particularly for running or expanding farming and animal husbandry. When remittances are spent to increase livestock herds, the resulting intensive use of nearby pastures often leads to overgrazing and land degradation.

Cloud computing is the de facto platform for deploying resource- and data-intensive real-time applications due to the collaboration of large scale resources operating in cross-administrative domains. For example, real-time systems are generated by smart devices (e.g., sensors in smart homes that monitor surroundings in real-time, security cameras that produce video streams in real-time, cloud gaming, social media streams, etc.). Such low-end devices form a microgrid which has low computational and storage capacity and hence offload data unto the cloud for processing. Cloud computing still lacks mature time-oriented scheduling and resource allocation strategies which thoroughly deliberate stringent QoS. Traditional approaches are sufficient only when applications have real-time and data constraints, and cloud storage resources are located with computational resources where the data are locally available for task execution. Such approaches mainly focus on resource provision and latency, and are prone to missing deadlines during tasks execution due to the urgency of the tasks and limited user budget constraints. The timing and data requirements exacerbate the efficient task scheduling and resource allocation problems. To cope with the aforementioned gaps, we propose a time- and cost-efficient resource allocation strategy for smart systems that periodically offload computational and data-intensive load to the cloud. The proposed strategy minimizes the data files transfer overhead to computing resources by selecting appropriate pairs of computing and storage resources. The celebrated results show the effectiveness of the proposed technique in terms of resource selection and tasks processing within time and budget constraints when compared with the other counterparts.

Central Asia is a vital link in the huge Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) that follows much of the ancient Silk Road routes in this region. Other than the economic expansion and trade benefits associated with this complex infrastructure system, little is known about the many of the exogenous issues and direct environmental and socioeconomic impacts surrounding the BRI in Central Asia. This opinion paper takes a sharper look at some of these externalities and potential effects through a sustainability lens. Major environmental concerns focus on the proliferation of spur roads that will develop off upgraded or new Belt Roads to promote exploitation of natural resources. Steep, high-elevation landscapes in the Pamirs and Tien Shan pose problems for road location and construction, and the history of road building in less formidable terrain in Yunnan, China is unsustainable, leading to epic landslide and gully erosion, which degrade river systems. Furthermore, many socioeconomic issues may arise like debt dependencies of poor countries, spread of communicable diseases into remote communities, depletion of mineral resources, and implicit compliance with pro-China policies. While some of the poorer post-Soviet nations can reap short-term benefits from BRI plans, it is urged that they assess the long-term sustainability of BRI development and play an active role in determining the conditions for implementation.

The abundance and diversity of mineralization in Iran form the foundation of Iran's rich history of mining. The mining sites have geo-scientific, industrial, cultural, social, economical, historical and anthropological potentials for development of tourism. Using these potentials is very important for rural sustainable development. In this paper we suggest developing tourism in the mining sites within the framework of geotourism in Iran. The geological, cultural and historical aspects of ancient mines and current mining sites are discussed. Furthermore, their geotouristic potentials (like historic mining industry and buildings, exploration or extraction tunnels, minerals, signatures of mineralization types) are discussed within a broader sustainable development picture of Iran. We propose how Iran's rich mining heritage provides a valuable basis for tourism development and creates potential for more diverse employment opportunities. Developing and planning tourism in mining sites entails strategic implementation of public education on geological processes, cultural and historical evolutions, asserting the value and originality of mining sites and calling for public assistance in the protection of the heritages.

This study explores a paradigm of sustainable land use in the oases along the Tarim River of northwest China, where a fragile, semi-arid riparian ecosystem is being damaged by excessive land and water use for agriculture, especially for the growing of cotton. The reliance of agriculture on water-demanding cash crops in this region poses a grave threat to survival of the natural Tugai vegetation in the area and to the long-term sustainability of the region. We explored the hypothesis that the species Apocynum pictum (A. pictum), known as Lop-Kendir by locals, and the Chinese red date (Zyzyphus jujube) may act as sustainable crop substitutes for the region, thereby replacing the widely distributed cash crop of cotton that has high water demands. Therefore, we investigated current utilization and cost-revenue structure of these two alternative plants and compared the results to cotton. Three natural resource management types of A. pictum were both identified in the wild and cultivation, with cost-revenue analysis carried out for each. The results show that all three types of institutional arrangements of natural resources, which are namely open access, ranching and farming, were present in our study and at various levels for A. pictum. A. pictum farming costs 16,250.25 yuan/ha, generates 49,014.45 yuan/ha of revenue from raw materials and brings a profit of 32,764.2 yuan/ha, which is the highest of all three cash crops compared. The Chinese government encourages Chinese red date plantations with a “Grain for green” campaign in the Tarim Basin with this plant being more profitable than cotton, which could serve to diversify the region’s agriculture. We conclude that A. pictum offers opportunities for the restoration of vegetation in riparian ecosystems on salinized sites under the arid conditions of the Tarim Basin. Furthermore, it can serve as a viable land-use alternative to cotton for cash crop agriculture, as it may generate a certain income in the form of tea and fibers as well as fodder for livestock.

The paper focuses on the relationship between businesses and digital transformation, and how digital transformation has changed manufacturing in several ways. Aspects like Cloud Computing, vertical and horizontal integration, data communication, and the internet have contributed to sustainable manufacturing by decentralizing supply chains. In addition, digital transformation inventions such as predictive analysis and big data analytics have helped optimize sustainable manufacturing by reducing overproduction or underproduction through predicting customer demands. It integrates digital technology to enhance business operations, consumer engagement, supply chains, and coordination, the manufacturing process, energy conservation, efficiency, and environmental conservation and culture to satisfy business needs. Businesses’ failure to embrace digital transformation in this era contributes to their demise. This research paper will analyze and contrast several businesses and the extent of digital transformation’s influence on them during COVID-19. A two-stage study is conducted, the first stage assesses a chosen exemplary business success over three years. The second stage investigates the reasons for success, or otherwise, and the connection to digitalization in the business. Our outcomes suggest that digital transformation strongly influences firms’ effectiveness and survival from a technology-centric and business model standpoint. Some essential generic recommendations are suggested based on the results obtained.