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Flash floods are one of the most serious natural disasters, and have a significant impact on economic development. In this study, we employed the spatiotemporal analysis method to measure the spatial–temporal distribution of flash floods and examined the relationship between flash floods and driving factors in different subregions of landcover. Furthermore, we analyzed the response of flash floods on the economic development by sensitivity analysis. The results indicated that the number of flash floods occurring annually increased gradually from 1949 to 2015, and regions with a high quantity of flash floods were concentrated in Zhaotong, Qujing, Kunming, Yuxi, Chuxiong, Dali, and Baoshan. Specifically, precipitation and elevation had a more significant effect on flash floods in the settlement than in other subregions, with a high r (Pearson’s correlation coefficient) value of 0.675, 0.674, 0.593, 0.519, and 0.395 for the 10 min precipitation in 20-year return period, elevation, 60 min precipitation in 20-year return period, 24 h precipitation in 20-year return period, and 6 h precipitation in 20-year return period, respectively. The sensitivity analysis showed that the Kunming had the highest sensitivity (S = 21.86) during 2000–2005. Based on the research results, we should focus on heavy precipitation events for flash flood prevention and forecasting in the short term; but human activities and ecosystem vulnerability should be controlled over the long term.

With rapid progress in the corporate social responsibility (CSR) theories and the up-gradation of the global market information disclosure system, enterprises have increased their attention toward relevant stakeholders and social responsibility. CSR exerts a substantial impact on the sustainable development of enterprises and markets in the economic and social fields. On the one hand, the increasingly perfect supporting facilities promote the financial growth of the entire society. While on the other hand, the profit-seeking trend of capital is also on the rise. The incongruity between the rapid progress of enterprises and the lack of social responsibility limits the benign development of the market. This study discusses the antecedents of CSR from the variable combination perspective using the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis. It also investigates which combination of characteristics has better CSR performance. After the configuration analysis, it is identified that four paths lead to high CSR performance. These include the market-developed type, political link type, financial performance type, and state-owned enterprise subsidy type, and the level of each type is explained in-depth. Finally, this study provides management inspiration for the government and enterprises to formulate a sound social responsibility strategy and improve CSR performance by optimizing the matching of CSR activities and business objectives.

Sustainable food supply has gained considerable consumer concern due to the high percentage of spoilage microorganisms. Food industries need to expand advanced technologies that can maintain the nutritive content of foods, enhance the bio-availability of bioactive compounds, provide environmental and economic sustainability, and fulfill consumers’ requirements of sensory characteristics. Heat treatment negatively affects food samples’ nutritional and sensory properties as bioactives are sensitive to high-temperature processing. The need arises for non-thermal processes to reduce food losses, and sustainable developments in preservation, nutritional security, and food safety are crucial parameters for the upcoming era. Non-thermal processes have been successfully approved because they increase food quality, reduce water utilization, decrease emissions, improve energy efficiency, assure clean labeling, and utilize by-products from waste food. These processes include pulsed electric field (PEF), sonication, high-pressure processing (HPP), cold plasma, and pulsed light. This review describes the use of HPP in various processes for sustainable food processing. The influence of this technique on microbial, physicochemical, and nutritional properties of foods for sustainable food supply is discussed. This approach also emphasizes the limitations of this emerging technique. HPP has been successfully analyzed to meet the global requirements. A limited global food source must have a balanced approach to the raw content, water, energy, and nutrient content. HPP showed positive results in reducing microbial spoilage and, at the same time, retains the nutritional value. HPP technology meets the essential requirements for sustainable and clean labeled food production. It requires limited resources to produce nutritionally suitable foods for consumers’ health.

Coal chemical industry (CCI) sites are characterized by complex environmental media, combined heavy metal pollution, and diverse exposure routes. However, existing human health risk assessment (HHRA) methods have multiple drawbacks, such as their small scope of application, limited assessment factors, and insufficient case applications. After 128 soil samples were collected, the contents of Be, V, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Cd and Hg in the soils were analyzed based on general risk assessment guideline of China. Then, risk levels were calculated based on oral ingestion, skin contact and inhalation as the main exposure routes to compare and screen priority heavy metals. Furthermore, control values were identified through a contribution rate calculation model when CR > 10−6 or HQ > 1. As reference values, risk thresholds were proposed for heavy metals, and then a soil HHRA framework for the CCI site was constructed. Under the three exposure routes, the total CR was As > 10−6, and the total HQ was 1 > As > Cd; the HHRs related to As and V via the oral ingestion, dermal contact, and inhalation pathways were 76.67%, 13.13%, and 10.18% and 1.66%, 0, and 98.34%, respectively. The risk control value of As was 1.59 mg/kg and that of V was 25.1 mg/kg. Based on these results, the threshold values for priority heavy metals should be based on comprehensive considerations of the elemental background of a specific area, the contaminant criteria in different areas, the regional industrial development plan, and the most important control criterion, as well as the control value. Through the development of an HHRA framework and case verification, the authors of this article aim to guide CCI managers in screening priority heavy metals, formulating protection measures, developing improved operational procedures and improving the HHRA system for polluted CCI sites.

Accurate measurement of the shadow price of carbon dioxide (CO2) is fundamental to the scientific assessment of the carbon emission reduction cost and the formulation and execution of China’s carbon emission mitigation policies. Underpinned by the directional distance function, this research uses a parametric linear programming method and a Bayes bootstrap estimation method to estimate the marginal CO2 emission reduction cost of the industrial sector in China and to quantify the related influencing factors. The results revealed that the marginal reduction cost of industrial CO2 is CNY 4565/ton. The marginal reduction cost of CO2 varies by industry, with the textile industry being the highest and the petroleum, coking and nuclear fuel processing industries the lowest. Meanwhile, an increasing number of industries are shifting to cleaner production. Furthermore, the marginal reduction cost of industrial CO2 has an “inverted U-shaped” relation with carbon intensity. Carbon emission reduction can be accomplished effectively if the carbon intensity is kept below the threshold value of 0.41 tons/CNY 10,000.

Rapid urban expansion has significantly altered the regional landscape pattern, posing a serious threat to the sustainable development of natural and social ecosystems. By using landscape patterns indices and an area transfer matrix, this study analyzed the spatial-temporal changes of landscape patterns in the karst mountainous cities of southwest China from 2000 to 2020, by taking the central urban area of Guiyang City (CUAG) as the study area. This study explored the spatial and temporal driving factors of landscape pattern changes by using stepwise multiple linear regression and geographic detector methods. The results show: (1) CUAG’s landscape types altered changed drastically, with the area of forestland and construction land rapid increment and cultivated land decrement significantly. (2) The patches of construction land and forestland tended to be aggregated, the degree of fragmentation was reduced, and the shape was complex; cultivated land fragmentation was intensified. The connectivity of the landscape was improved, while the level of landscape diversity declined, the trend of landscape homogenization was obvious. (3) Socioeconomic and geographical endowment drivers have determined landscape pattern changes. The findings of this study may be used to interpret other similar landscapes worldwide and may imply the protection of urban ecosystem and sustainable development.

Low-temperature preheating, fast charging, and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) capabilities are important factors for the further development of electric vehicles (EVs). However, for conventional two-stage chargers, the EV charging/discharging instructions and grid instructions cannot be addressed simultaneously for specific requirements, pulse heating and variable-current charging can cause high-frequency power fluctuations at the grid side. Therefore, it is necessary to design a bidirectional grid-friendly charger for EVs operated under pulse-current heating and variable-current charging. The DC bus, which serves as the medium connecting the bidirectional DC–DC and bidirectional DC–AC, typically employs capacitors. This paper analyzes the reasons why the use of capacitors in the DC bus cannot satisfy the grid and EV requirements, and it proposes a new DC bus configuration that utilizes energy storage batteries instead of capacitors. Due to the voltage-source characteristics of the energy storage batteries, EV instructions and grid instructions can be flexibly and smoothly scheduled by using phase-shift control and adaptive virtual synchronous generator (VSG) control, respectively. In addition, the stability of the control strategy is demonstrated using small signal modeling. Finally, typical operating conditions (such as EV pulse preheating, fast charging with variable current, and grid peak shaving and valley filling) are selected for validation. The results show that in the proposed charger, the grid scheduling instructions and EV charging/discharging instructions do not interfere with each other, and different commands between EVs also do not interfere with each other under a charging pile with dual guns. Without affecting the requirements of EVs, the grid can change the proportion of energy supply based on actual scenarios and can also obtain energy from either EVs or energy storage batteries. For the novel charger, the pulse modulation time for EVs consistently achieves a steady state within 0.1 s; thus, the pulse modulation speed is as much as two times faster than that of conventional chargers with identical parameters.