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A new environmental ban has forced the restructure of open dumps in China since 1 July 2011. A technical process was established in this study that is feasible for the upgrade of open dumps through restructuring. The feasibility of restructuring and the benefit of greenhouse gas emission reductions were assessed according to field surveys of five landfills and four dumps in Nanjing. The results showed that the daily processing capacities of the existing landfills have been unable to meet the growth of municipal solid waste (MSW), making restructuring of the landfills imperative. According to an assessment of the technical process, only four sites in Nanjing were suitable for upgrading. Restructuring the Jiaozishan landfill effectively reduced the leachate generation rate by 5.84% under its scale when expanded by 60.7% in 2015. CO2 emissions were reduced by approximately 55,000–86,000 tons per year, in which biogas power generation replaced fossil fuels Fossil fuels accounted for the largest proportion, up to 45,000–60,000 tons. Photovoltaic power generation on the overlying land has not only reduced CO2 emissions to 26,000–30,000 tons per year but has also brought in continuing income from the sale of electricity. The funds are essential for developing countries such as China, which lack long-term financial support for landfill management after closure.

Public interest in and preferences for certain species can sometimes provide an opportunity for conservation and management. Here, we attempted to identify ‘popular’ anurans from YouTube data. In addition, the attractiveness of anuran advertisement-calling sounds were analyzed using acoustic data. By searching YouTube with the search term ‘frog calling’, 250 videos were selected. Of these, 174 videos could be classified according to species; these videos aided in extracting clean calling sounds, free from the overlapping calls of other male frogs, as well as other sounds. To assess the interests and preferences of viewers for different species, the numbers of videos, view counts, ‘likes,’ and ‘dislikes’ were recorded. From the videos, the calls of 78 species belonging to 17 families were identified. Viewer interest was highest for the Hylidae and Ranidae species, which are often discoverable in the field. In addition, invasive frogs had large numbers of videos and large numbers of ‘likes.’ People tended to prefer frogs calling with lower dominant frequencies. However, there were few videos on endangered species, and these garnered relatively less interest than other species. To manage and conserve invasive or endangered frog species, there is a need to increase ecological understanding by adjusting species awareness and charisma.

This research aimed to examine the willingness to pay (WTP) of the young generation (the age group from 18 to 29) for the participatory solutions and actions on fine particulate matter (PM2.5) pollution control and abatement in Daegu, Korea, and Beijing, China. This study found out that Korean respondents and Chinese respondents shared a wide range of similarities, both in terms of socio-demographic characters like age, family size, and house/apartment ownership, as well as a number of perceptions related to environmental and social responsibilities. Around one-third of the Korean respondents and one-fifth of the Chinese respondents expressed negative WTP due to primary reasons such as lack of trust in the effectiveness of PM2.5 control measures (Korea) and limitation of budget (China). The mean estimated values of WTP with and without explanatory variables in Korea were merely slightly higher than those in China. The mean WTP without control variables in Korea was 11,882.97 KRW/month (10.61 USD/month) and the one in China was 65.09 CNY/month (9.48 USD/month). The mean WTP with explanatory variables for Daegu, Korea, was KRW 11,982.33 (USD 10.70) per person per month, and the one for Beijing, China, was CNY 64.84 (USD 9.40) per person per month. The annual total WTP for Daegu, Korea, was assessed around KRW 47572 million (USD 42.45 million), whereas the estimated total WTP for Beijing, China, was around CNY 3260.14 million (USD 474.94 million) per year. Based on the results and the findings, this study proposes to further strengthen the comprehensive cooperation between China and Korea in the field of air quality improvement, with a particular focus on PM2.5 control and abatement and cooperation in academic circles and among the general public.

The study aimed to determine Aluminum sludge composition and structure for its valorisation as an alternative natural material for heavy metals removal from wastewater for further reuse as treated water in different applications. The study was conducted to investigate the introduction of Al-bearing sludge composition. The physical and chemical properties were examined using X-ray diffraction tests (XRD), scanning electron microscope tests (SEM), Fourier-transform infrared tests (FTIR), and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller tests (BET). Furthermore, the heavy metal concentrations of synthetic wastewater were measured using the spectrophotometry method. The experimental procedure is based on testing different pH limits and amounts of aluminum sludge to find the optimum conditions for copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn) removal. The results demonstrated a high removal efficiency where its value reached up to 97.4% and 96.6% for Zn and Cu, respectively, in an acidic medium (pH = 6) using a relatively high amount of sludge (1400 mg). Nevertheless, a low efficiency was obtained in the strongly acidic medium (pH = 4) and a smaller sludge amount of about 480 mg.

This study aimed to realize Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), i.e., no poverty, zero hunger, and sustainable cities and communities through the implementation of an intelligent cattle-monitoring system to enhance dairy production. Livestock industries in developing countries lack the technology that can directly impact meat and dairy products, where human resources are a major factor. This study proposed a novel, cost-effective, smart dairy-monitoring system by implementing intelligent wireless sensor nodes, the Internet of Things (IoT), and a Node-Micro controller Unit (Node-MCU). The proposed system comprises three modules, including an intelligent environmental parameter regularization system, a cow collar (equipped with a temperature sensor, a GPS module to locate the animal, and a stethoscope to update the heart rate), and an automatic water-filling unit for drinking water. Furthermore, a novel IoT-based front end has been developed to take data from prescribed modules and maintain a separate database for further analysis. The presented Wireless Sensor Nodes (WSNs) can intelligently determine the case of any instability in environmental parameters. Moreover, the cow collar is designed to obtain precise values of the temperature, heart rate, and accurate location of the animal. Additionally, auto-notification to the concerned party is a valuable addition developed in the cow collar design. It employed a plug-and-play design to provide ease in implementation. Moreover, automation reduces human intervention, hence labor costs are decreased when a farm has hundreds of animals. The proposed system also increases the production of dairy and meat products by improving animal health via the regularization of the environment and automated food and watering. The current study represents a comprehensive comparative analysis of the proposed implementation with the existing systems that validate the novelty of this work. This implementation can be further stretched for other applications, i.e., smart monitoring of zoo animals and poultry.

Saffron, also known as “the golden spice”, is one of the most expensive crops in the world. The expensiveness of saffron comes from its rarity, the tedious harvesting process, and its nutritional and medicinal value. Different countries of the world are making great economic growth due to saffron export. In India, it is cultivated mostly in regions of Kashmir owing to its climate and soil composition. The economic value generated by saffron export can be increased manyfold by studying the agronomical factors of saffron and developing a model for artificial cultivation of saffron in any season and anywhere by monitoring and controlling the conditions of its growth. This paper presents a detailed study of all the agronomical variables of saffron that have a direct or indirect impact on its growth. It was found that, out of all the agronomical variables, the important ones having an impact on growth include corm size, temperature, water availability, and minerals. It was also observed that the use of IoT for the sustainable cultivation of saffron in smart cities has been discussed only by very few research papers. An IoT-based framework has also been proposed, which can be used for controlling and monitoring all the important growth parameters of saffron for its cultivation.

While firms understand that implementing green supply chain management (GSCM) is important, they seem uncertain about how to manage their green initiatives by looking beyond their own facilities. Building a green supply chain requires the participation of all partner firms across the supply chain. However, partner firms are different in size, situation, capabilities, and even industries. Thus, encouraging them to participate in green initiatives is difficult. Many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) hesitate to comply with green initiatives as they require a substantial amount of investment. This study empirically examines the causal relationship between the partnership governance mechanism and the success of GSCM. Based on transaction-cost economics theory (i.e., opportunism) and relational perspectives (i.e., trust) as the theoretical background, this study found that governance mechanisms between suppliers and manufacturers are positively related to GSCM performance. It showed that formal governance is important in the process-management side, while relational governance is critical for sharing knowledge in GSCM. The implications of the study results provide strategic insights on how the choice of governance mechanism affects GSCM performance and thus a firm’s competitiveness.