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The coordinated sustainable development of urban water resources and economic growth requires a better understanding of the relationship between industrial water use and economic growth
. This study analyzed the relationship between urban industrial water use and economic development in Tianjin City in China (one of the four municipalities directly under the Central Government) from 2005 to 2015. The research combined the logarithmic mean Divisia index model with the Tapio model to develop a new decoupled model analyzing the relationship between urban industrial water use and economic development. The results show that: (1) Tianjin's industrial water use and economic growth show a clear decoupling; (2) the economic scale effect drives Tianjin's total industrial water use and economic growth towards weaker decoupling, stabilizing in a weakly decoupled state; and (3) the industrial structure effect and industrial water intensity effect drive the decoupling of industrial water use and economic growth in Tianjin. Finally, the paper provides policy recommendations to promote the decoupling of industrial water use and economic growth. © 2018 by the authors
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This study proposes and integrates a double lens investigation framework on sustainability and diversities of innovation at the city level in China
. Lens I concerns economic performance with the energy intensiveness of the production mode and Lens II involves a four-dimensional model with the current and potential elements of innovation at the city level. Based on 106Chinese cities data, sample cities grouped in Traditional Regions (TRs), Top Economic Regions (TEs) and New Economy Regions (NEs) of the 9 groups are clarified via the Investigation Lens I, with respect to production power, market openness and energy intensive use. The further research findings through the Investigation Lens II show that there are clear connections between innovation and sustainability and such connections are diversified due to economic reasons but also importantly, due to potential factors of human resource and knowledge creation. Cities in TEs group and especially NEs group in China are important on innovation and sustainability while southern cities in China are more innovative, with a higher potentiality of economic growth than cities in northern China. Industrial tradition and business culture can be one of the key factors influencing local innovation and sustainability. © 2018 by the authors
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Understanding decoupling China's emissions from the economy and identifying the drivers of emissions at a sector perspective can facilitate China's move to a low-carbon economy that makes economic growth compatible with carbon reduction
. This study combined decoupling and decomposition econometric techniques to quantify both the decoupling effects and the driving elements of carbon emissions in China's six major sectors. The study found that the leading source of all carbon emissions in China come from the industrial sector, followed by the 'Other' sectors and the Transport sector. Further, the decoupling status in those sectors differed: Construction (weak decoupling), other (weak decoupling), Trade (weak decoupling), Industry (weak decoupling), Transport (expansive coupling) and Agriculture (expansive negative decoupling). Finally, the economic output effect becomes the major contributor for carbon emissions among these six sectors, followed by the energy intensity effect. However, the energy structure effect and carbon coefficient effect are both weak. © 2018 by the authors
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Construction of new coal-fired power plants in China has posed a huge challenge to energy sustainability
. Forecasting the installed capacity more accurately can serve to develop better energy sustainability strategy. A comparison between linear and non-linear forecasting models can more comprehensively describe the characteristics of the prediction data and provide multi-angle analysis of the prediction results. In this paper, we develop four time-series forecasting techniques-metabolism grey model (MGM), autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA), grey model (GM)-ARIAM, and nonlinear metabolism grey model (NMGM)-for better forecasting of coal-fired power installed capacity. The average relative errors between the simulation and actual data of the MGM, GM-ARIMA, ARIMA, and NMGM model are 3.37%, 2.13%, 3.71% and 2.36% respectively, which indicate those four models can produce highly accurate results. The forecasting results show the average annual growth rate of China's coal-fired power installed capacity in the next ten years (2017-2016) will be 5.26% a year, which is slower than the average annual growth rate (8.20% a year) for 2007-2016. However, the average annual new added installed capacity for 2017-2026 will be 74 gigawatts, which is higher than the average annual added installed capacity (56 gigawatts) for 2007-2016. © 2018 by the authors
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There is a large number of peer-reviewed publications reporting that a changing climate is one of the biggest challenges humanity will have during the 21st century
. With population growth and the need to significantly increase agricultural production per unit of area during the 21st century, a changing climate will put additional stress on soil resources. Soil and water conservation will be key for the future of humanity. Professional societies in the area of agriculture and soil and water conservation have recognized the importance that soil resources will have for humanity during this century and have made calls for implementation of worldwide soil and water conservation. For example, in 2010 the Soil and Water Conservation Society (SWCS) invited a group of scientists to review the literature about the potential to use conservation practices for climate change adaptation and mitigation. The Delgado et al. (2011) paper was used by the SWCS to develop and adopt a position statement about the importance of using soil and water conservation practices to mitigate and adapt to climate change. The International Soil Conservation Organization (ISCO) invited the lead author to present the paper as a keynote presentation at the ISCO 2013 conference. The European Society of Soil Conservation (ESSC) published a short communication about this paper in one of their newsletters in 2014. The World Association of Soil and Water Conservation (WASWAC) also invited the lead author to present a keynote presentation on this topic at the 2015 WASWAC annual meeting in Nanchang. This paper (the Nanchang Communication) is a summary of the Delgado et al. (2011) paper that was used by the SWCS to develop the SWCS position statement related to soil and water conservation and climate change. The Nanchang Communication (this paper) was used by WASWAC to develop a position statement about the immediate need for implementation of conservation practices for mitigation of and adaptation to climate change to achieve food security in the 21st century. These papers (Delgado et al., 2011, Nanchang Communication), and the SWCS and WASWAC position statements, support the conclusions from the worldwide literature that without implementation of soil and water conservation practices for climate change mitigation and adaptation, the survival of life, including our own species, will be in jeopardy, since soils will be key to meeting the higher demands for food during the 21st century
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