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• The global tropospheric NO 2 columns have generally decreased in the past 18 years. • Several hotspots tropospheric NO 2 are observed over industrialized and highly populated coastal zone areas. • Atmospheric nitrogen deposition plays an important role in nitrogen pollution in Bohai Sea. • The highest tropospheric NO 2 occurs in winter, and the highest near-surface NO 2 occurs at 08:00 and 20:00 LT. • NO 2 trends observed from ground-based measurements and satellite-derived retrievals is consistent. Tropospheric and ground-level levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO 2) may have changed due to environmental policies and technological changes. Here, multiyear ground-based measurement (2014–2022) and satellite-derived retrieval (October 2004 to May 2023) datasets of NO 2 concentrations are used to study the long-term ground-level and tropospheric NO 2 patterns and trends at four time scales (interannual, quarterly, monthly, and hourly) over the three regions with the highest global NO 2 concentrations. Several tropospheric NO 2 hotspots are observed over industrialized and highly populated coastal zone areas. Over the past 18 years, these hotpots have generally decreased due to the implementation of strong and effective environmental protection policies. A significant trend reversal was observed in 2011 in East-central China. The maximum values of tropospheric NO 2 occurred in winter over East-central China, Western Europe and East-central USA, with concentrations of 13.010, 4.243 and 4.149 × 1015 molecules cm−2, respectively. The Bohai Sea exhibited disproportionately high tropospheric NO 2 levels, suggesting it as a significant contributor to regional nitrogen pollution. Ground-level NO2 shows similar temporal patterns to tropospheric concentrations, with over 82.8 % of sites in East-central China exceeding 30 μg m−3, compared to 12.8 % in Western Europe and 3.8 % in East-central USA. The analysis of diurnal variations in ground-level NO 2 concentrations shows a significantly decrease during the daytime compared to nighttime, reflecting that the peak occurs at approximately 08:00 and 20:00 LT, while the lowest concentrations at around 12:00 LT. These insights clarify the impacts of environmental policies on NO 2 levels and identify critical areas for targeted pollution control, enhancing our understanding of NO 2 dynamics in high-pollution regions globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• To investigate the green technology selection effect of environmental information disclosure policy. • Using mediation effect model to study the transmission mechanism of environmental policy. • Using instrumental variable approach to control the endogenous problem of environmental policy. • To examine the different effects of environmental information disclosure on green technology in different cityes. Based on 230 prefecture-level city panel data from 2003 to 2019 in China, this paper uses environmental information announcement system as a quasi-natural experiment, and uses the two-stage least squares (2SLS) model with instrument variables (IVs) to test the green innovation effect of heterogeneous urban environmental information announcement. The results show that environmental information announcement can significantly stimulate green innovation, and the stimulating impact has a long duration time and heightens year by year. Under the constraints of different affluence degrees, administrative level, industrial dependence degree and the difficulty of profit acquisition, the effects of urban environmental information announcement have obvious differences. Generally, the higher the degree of urban affluence or administrative level, the more prominent the effect of green innovation of environmental information announcement is. The more dependent the city is on the polluting industry, or the easier it is to obtain profits from the polluting industry, the more difficult it is to change the direction of green innovation of environmental information announcement. Simultaneously, environmental information announcement mainly motivates the choice of green innovation by changing the difficulty of obtaining industry profits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Proposing the STSL framework for target selection and compensation modes in win–win PES. • Constructing the environmental vulnerability-livelihood assets evaluation system. • Detecting the priority areas for implementing conservation PES or restoration PES. • Developing ten differentiated hematopoiesis payment modes. Spatial targets and payment modes are the key components for solving the issue of "where to pay and how to pay" and for supporting ecosystem service providers to achieve sustainable livelihoods and end poverty through payments for ecosystem services (PES) for environmental protection and poverty reduction. Here, we present the Spatial Targets and Sustainable Livelihoods (STSL) framework and analyze regional environmental vulnerability and livelihood assets in the Longnan Municipality of China. We constructed reasonable spatial targeting and payment modes according to each actual type. We classified the present 27 poverty-stricken areas in Longnan Municipality into two levels of environmental vulnerability, four classes in combination with natural capital, eight categories with the addition of human capital, and ten subcategories considering environmental vulnerability and all five livelihood assets. Finally, considering regional development and sustainable livelihoods for poor people, we suggest spatial layout targets for implementing conservation or restoration ecological projects and 10 differentiated payment modes. This study provides an appropriate proposal for certain regions to implement the environmental policy of win–win PES and fills the research gap regarding specific payment modes for PES. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic model is used to construct political factors. • SBM-DEA model is used to evaluate the ecological efficiency of 36 cities. • Time effect is introduced into FSQCA to analyze the panel data of all cities and four regions. • Differences of the four urban agglomerations are compared. • Analyze the different paths of political factors in 36 cities. Rapid economic development of any country will usually lead to negative environmental impacts. A free market economy cannot fundamentally solve this issue, which requires the guidance and control of the government. The environmental policies of governments can effectively improve the ecological conditions in a region. This study quantifies environmental regulation policies and takes four urban agglomerations in eastern China as the research object to explore the influence of environmental regulation on regional ecological efficiency. First, policies can be divided into policy control, pollution control, ecological protection, and social adjustment by building a Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) model of a policy text library to measure differences in urban policy bias. Next, a slack-based measure (SBM) model was used to measure urban ecological efficiency. Finally, using the qualitative comparison analysis method, the time effect was considered and the ecological efficiency configuration of the entire region was obtained. In addition, contrast analysis was conducted for different path configurations and the reasons of the statuses of the four urban agglomerations were obtained. The results show that policy control, pollution control, ecological protection, and other mandatory policies can significantly reduce the negative environmental effects, especially when the policy controls involve an explicit form of punishment, which is a necessary condition for achieving a high level of ecological efficiency. However, social adjustment means having higher requirements for regional total factor development, which requires improving the environmental awareness of residents and improving corporate social responsibility. Regional differences will mean that areas with a lower level of economic development have a higher intensity of policy control, and the means of policy control should be matched with the level of economic development. In addition, this study proposes some policy suggestions, such as strengthening policy control and pollution prevention, strengthening social regulation, and promulgating environmental laws and regulations according to local conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]