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Haze is a pollution phenomenon that has become increasingly frequent in recent years, primarily composed of SO2, NOx, and particulate matter. Since the “PM2.5 Crisis” in 2013, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region has been plagued by haze. After a series of high-intensity management activities, the air quality in Beijing has continued to improve. To investigate the effectiveness of the haze control measures in Beijing, a dynamic management model was constructed using the system dynamics approach and implemented using Stella software. The model is simulated and evaluated the contribution to different governance strategies (increasing investment in science and technology innovation, reducing motor vehicle ownership, reducing coal consumption, and a combination policy) to reduce haze in Beijing from 2010 to 2025. The validity and robustness of the model were verified through model testing and validation. The simulation results showed that: (1) the combination policy has the most significant effect on reducing energy consumption and pollution emissions, which would reduce energy consumption by 38.93 million tons and pollution emissions by 128.33 thousand tons in 2025, (2) among the single treatment measures, reducing industrial coal consumption is the most effective measure to reducing haze, (3) it is necessary to strengthen the joint prevention and control of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region in the future to promote the sustainable development of the regional environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coordination and balance between agricultural development (AD) and agricultural carbon emissions (ACE) is one of the most important ways to boost the high-quality development of agriculture in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. Taking 13 prefecture-level cities in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region as the research object, this study uses the comprehensive evaluation method and Tapio decoupling model to analyze the decoupling effect between the AD level and the Agricultural Carbon emissions intensity (ACEI) from 2000 to 2020, based on the assessment of AD status and the calculation of Agricultural Carbon emissions quantities (ACEQ) and ACEI. It found that: (1) From 2000 to 2020, the AD in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region generally showcased a gradual increase trend, and demonstrated a basic feature that AD in the northern areas was higher than that in the southern ones. (2) From 2000 to 2020, the ACEQ in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region showed a trend of first increasing and then decreasing, with a spatial distribution feature that the ACEQ in the southern cities was higher than that in the northern ones. Regarding the source of ACE, the livestock and poultry farming took the highest proportion. ACEI was decreasing year by year, higher in the southern areas than in the northern ones. (3) The main types of decoupling in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region were strong decoupling, recession decoupling, strong negative decoupling, weak negative decoupling, recession coupling, and expansion negative coupling. The decoupling relationship between AD and ACEI were in dynamic change, but the change trend of the decoupling relationship was optimistic. The results of this study deliver certain deployable practice value for improving the sustainability of regional agricultural green development and ecological environmental protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the whole life cycle theory, the carbon effect of three different sizes of high-standard basic farmland construction projects is measured and analysed. The results show that the carbon emissions generated during the construction of high-standard basic farmland projects and the carbon absorption capacity at the later stage are different for projects of different sizes. The carbon emissions of different scales of high-standard basic farmland projects will increase during the construction stage. The results of carbon effect changes in the later operation and management stage show that the high-standard basic farmland construction projects will help reduce the carbon emissions of the field ecosystem where the farmland is located and increase its carbon sink capacity after the completion of construction, which is more obvious in larger projects. The emission reduction and carbon sequestration capacity of the farmland after remediation are improved to different degrees, which is more conducive to the ecological development of agricultural production and ecological environmental protection in the relevant areas. The study contributes to the green development of farmland, which is of some significance for the sustainable development of agriculture in Tianjin and the whole country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]