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Water, energy and food are inextricably linked in agricultural system. Social and environmental issues arising from socio-economic development pose new challenges for sustainable agricultural development. Achieving sustainable agriculture from the perspective of water, energy and food resource conservation is of critical importance to the national strategy for high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin in China. In this study, the mass productivity and economic productivity of water and energy in agricultural system were considered, and an integrated assessment index system for agricultural system based on the Water-Energy-Food Nexus (WEFN) was proposed in three dimensions: reliability, coordination and resilience. Based on these indicators, the agricultural water-energy-food nexus index (AWEFNI) and integrated risk index (IRI) were performed to assess the current status of agricultural development in the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River. Results indicate that the AWEFNI in the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River is increasing year by year, and the level of sustainable agricultural development is improving, but the overall level is lower. The AWEFNI values vary widely among provinces. The reliability of single subsystem in the study area accounts for more than 1/3 of the AWEFNI, with poor water endowment， rich food and energy resource endowments, the coordination of the AWEFN is weakening. The resilience of the third subsystem is gradually declining. The contradiction in water and energy supply and demand in Ningxia is the most prominent among the five provinces, and the level of AWEFN development is the lowest, so the regulation policies should be implemented as soon as possible to promote the synergistic development of AWEFN around the region., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

How to balance natural river base flow with water loss from agricultural activities such as irrigation has become an important global challenge in areas of water shortage. Using a Bayesian network model, we constructed a decision-making framework for river ecological base flow in the water shortage areas. This framework can be divided into three components: (1) calculation of economic losses caused when priority is given to protect river ecological base flow, (2) construction of a decision-making Bayesian network, and (3) determination of an optimum ecological base flow of rivers based on an acceptable probability of acceptable economic losses the decision-makers selected. We used the Baoji section of the Weihe River as a typical water shortage area case study. The results show that the optimum ecological base flows in the Baoji section of Weihe River in wet, normal, and dry years were 32.35%, 20.59%, and 14.71% of natural inflow in rivers, respectively. From an economic benefit perspective, the beneficiaries should provide more financial support to protect the ecological base flow of rivers. Our approach could be used in other water shortage areas where decisions need to be made between protection of river ecological base flows of rivers and agricultural use., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The interrelationship between regional water, energy, food, and land systems is extremely complex. Hence, accurately assessing the coupling coordination relationship and identifying the influential factors of the water-energy-food-land nexus (WEFL nexus) are of utmost importance. This study proposes a novel analytical framework and evaluation index system for exploring interactions across the WEFL nexus. The comprehensive benefit evaluation index (CBEI), coupling coordination degree (CCD) model, and obstacle factor diagnosis model are integrated to assess and analyze the coupling coordination relationship and spatiotemporal dynamic evolution of the WEFL nexus in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) from 2006 to 2020. The results indicated that (1) the CBEI and CCD generally increased from 0.23 to 0.79 and 0.45 to 0.88, respectively, revealing the upward trend of the coordination development levels of the WEFL nexus in the YREB. (2) The lower reaches achieved a relatively higher coordination development degree than the upper and middle reaches of the YREB. (3) The findings of obstacle factors reveal that agricultural non-point source pollution control, waterlogging disaster prevention, industrial solid waste efficient treatment, and urban water-saving are the essential fields that need to be improved in YREB's future development. This study helps to understand the complex interrelation of the WEFL nexus at different spatial-temporal scales and provides a novel framework that can be used as an evaluation system and policy insights for a region's integrated resources, environmental management, and green sustainable development., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Agriculture is the largest freshwater consumer, accounting for ~ 70% of global freshwater consumption. The agricultural water footprint (WF) and water resources ecological footprint (EF w ) are used to describe the ecological environment and socioeconomic functions of water resources. Anyang in the North China Plain is a typical area with freshwater shortage and was selected as a study area to estimate water consumption by agriculture. We estimated the spatiotemporal variation of green, blue, and grey WF of five crops in Anyang during 1990-2018 based on the WF theory, EF w , and water resources carrying capacity (EC w ) methods. To analyze the EF w of specific crops, we developed the framework between agricultural WF and EF w , and quantified the EF w of specific crops. The results show that the WF green , WF blue , and WF grey of Anyang increased from 1188, 1560, and 511 million m 3 in 1990 to 1440, 1736, and 1010 million m 3 in 2018, respectively, mainly owing to the increase of cultivated area and amount of agricultural nitrogen. Winter wheat and maize were the two leading crops in both green and blue water consumption, taking 31.35 and 55.25% of the total WF green , and 71.32 and 22.52% of the total WF blue , respectively. The average unit mass WF green and WF blue of crops showed a reducing trend during 1990-2018 because of the urbanization of farmland and the increase of crop yields. Both EC w and water ecological deficit per capital in Anyang decreased. Anyang has been in a state of water ecological deficit since 2000. The results imply that Anyang has been importing a large amount of water from other areas for its consumption since 2000. This study is expected to contribute to agricultural water management by providing suitable information to policy-makers. Furthermore, the results of this study indicate that it is urgent to make strict water resource management and water pollution prevention measures to improve the water use efficiency in Anyang and to ease the pressure on water scarcity., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Water and land are crucial natural resources for agricultural development. It is necessary to allocate water and land resources effectively in order to achieve the maximum economic profits and the minimum environmental costs. In this research, an inexact two-stage fractional programming model was developed for the allocation of water and land resources, which is integrated interval-parameters (IPP), two-stage stochastic programming (TSP), fractional programming (FP). This model could optimally allocate water and land resources at the same time under the scenario of the maximum economic profit and the minimum environmental cost; it was proved to be beneficial in (1) dealing with the conflicts between economic development and environmental protection and give insights in trade-off among the agricultural system; (2) allocating water and land resources for five crops under multiple flow level simultaneously; and (3) describing the uncertain inputs as interval-parameters to reduce model uncertainties. The developed model was applied to the northeast region of China. The optimal allocation schemes of water and land resources, the maximum economic profits, and the minimum environmental costs were obtained. The results showed that economic profits in the agricultural system in the northeast region of China would not definitely be connected with the allocation of water and land resources, and solid waste pollution would bear the largest environmental cost. The developed model could help decision-makers to get a deeper understanding of the agricultural system and manage water and land resources in an efficient and environment-friendly way., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The crop water relationship quantification is conducive to decision-making for regional food safety and resource conservation. However, irrigation water and crop water footprint (CWF) was observed separately in previous studies, which leads to incomplete evaluation of water resource occupation in agricultural system. The crop water resource use (WRU), combining WF and irrigation water accounting, in 31 provinces of China from 1999 to 2018 was estimated in current paper. The driving forces of WRU were analyzed using the logarithmic mean divisia index (LMDI) model, based on its spatial and temporal patterns demonstration. The results showed that national WRU increased from 1051.6 Gm 3 in 1999 to 1676.4 Gm 3 in 2018, with an average annual growth rate of 2.48%. The provinces with high WRU were mainly distributed in North China and Northeast China. Hebei, Shandong, and Henan jointly contributed 28.9% of the national WRU. In addition, economic level was the largest contributor to promote the growth of WRU, and water use intensity was the most important contributor to inhibit the growth of WRU. Economic level, resource endowment, and population size had a promoting effect on WRU in Northeast, Northwest, North China, and Southeast provinces, while water use intensity, irrigation technique, and urbanization degree showed inhibitory effect in Northeast, Northwest, and Southwest provinces. It is meaningful to combine water footprint and irrigation water use for agricultural water management and conservation. The arid North China Plain should adopt water-saving irrigation and rainwater recycling technologies to control WRU, and the Northeast granary should reduce WRU by strengthening water pollution prevention and improving water resources scheduling to ensure food security and sustainable use of water resources., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Understanding cropland ecosystem water use efficiency (eWUE) responses to drought is important for sustainable water resource management and food security. Today in China, the spatiotemporal patterns of eWUE and responses to drought across different cropland classes remain poorly quantified. In this study, we characterized the spatial temporal variability in cropland eWUE and response to drought in China from 1982 to 2017 using the satellite-retrieved evapotranspiration (ET), gross primary production (GPP), and self-calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index (scPDSI), in conjunction with the Global Food Security-support Analysis Data product for Crop Dominance (GFSAD1KCD) data. Results indicated that (1) mean annual cropland eWUE had a spatial range from 0 to 9.94 g C kg -1 H 2 O, with higher values (2.06 g C kg -1 H 2 O) in class 4 (rainfed: wheat, rice, and soybeans dominant), whereas the lowest eWUE (1.58 g C kg -1 H 2 O) occurred in class 2 (irrigated mixed crop 1: wheat, rice, barley, and soybeans). (2) Annual eWUE, GPP, and ET values for croplands in China increased significantly between 1982 and 2017. Class 1 (irrigated wheat and rice) had the highest trend of 0.011 g C kg -1 H 2 O yr -1 , and class 6 (rainfed: corn and soybeans) had the lowest of 0.0007 g C kg -1 H 2 O yr -1 . Apart from class 4, annual GPP and ET were enhanced in most cropland classes from 1982 to 2017 (p<0.01). (3) Rainfed croplands generally had higher eWUE, GPP, and ET values than irrigated croplands. Except for rainfed cropland eWUE, all other cropland variables increased significantly (p<0.001) from 1982 to 2017. (4) Correlation analysis found that the 19.66% (15.62%) of cropland had significant negative (positive) correlations between eWUE and current-year scPDSI. The legacy effects of drought on cropland eWUE indicated that previous and current-year drought impacts on cropland eWUE were in the same direction. Our results provide insights into variability in cropland eWUE and its response to drought in China, where there is a growing demand for agricultural water resource management., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Large amounts of water-based drilling cuttings (WDC) would be generated during the drilling of shale gas wells, which would occupy land resources and pose significant threat to soil and groundwater environment. The aim of this study was to assess the feasibility of using WDC as a replacement of natural clay to prepare sintered bricks. To determine the optimum preparation condition, the weight loss on ignition, bulk density, water absorption, and compressive strength of the samples were tested. Meanwhile, the environmental performance of the final products was evaluated and micro-analysis was conducted via X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. The results showed that using WDC to manufacture sintered bricks was technically feasible, but the physical mechanical performance would significantly decrease with the increase of the replacement ratio because of the presence of less silica and excessive calcium. The addition of waste glass and fly ash could promote the generation of molten glassy phase and form the crystal particle bonding structure, which would contribute to the physical-mechanical performance of WDC sintered bricks. Some mineral components in raw materials decomposed and formed minerals with better thermal stability during the sintering process. Under the optimum preparation conditions (mass ratio of WDC: waste glass: fly ash at 40:20:40, sintering temperature at 900 °C, and insulation time at 2 h), the physical-mechanical and environmental performance of WDC sintered bricks could meet the requirements of corresponding Chinese standards and ASTM standards. Thus, in this study, an effective solution to recycle WDC from shale gas development is provided.

This paper gives a brief analysis on the educational advantages and objects of NCWU. It believes that the educational philosophy and development direction of foreign school in engineering colleges must be set up on the basis of need of China and talents need, moreover, the development of the School of Foreign Studies must be analyzed by integrating into the whole development of NCWU. This paper put forwards the educational philosophy of "Drawing on Advantages, Avoiding Disadvantages, and Gearing Education to Society" and the Development Direction of "Rooted in Foreign Language and Characterised by Engineering and Business". It analyzes the problem of school of foreign studies in NCWU in Specialty Construction, teaching team and Construction of Discipline and puts forwards some solutions.

A sourdough combined with microwave heating method was adopted to make steamed cake (SSC), the dough yield, fermentation time and additive amount of sourdough were optimized by Response Surface Methodology (RSM) to obtain microwave-steamed cake (MSSC) with high-quality attributes and then the potential mechanism of sourdough on the improvement of the MSSC texture was investigated. The addition of sourdough with the optimized parameters could greatly improve the specific volume, porosity, hardness, and chewiness of MSSC, which was mainly related to changes in dielectric properties and water distribution. The results of dielectric properties confirmed that sourdough increased the dielectric properties of the system during microwave heating, affecting the microwave heating characteristics. And the changes of water states and distribution by T 2 relaxation analysis showed that sourdough restricted water mobility during heating and facilitated the retention of water trapped in MSSC. Additionally, the scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images indicated that sourdough weakened the gluten network structure, and triggered a looser and smoother microstructure. PRACTICAL APPLICATION: Steamed cake (SSC) is one of the most popular fermented foods in China, while its commercial development is greatly limited by the drawbacks of traditional steam heating. In recent years, the applications of microwave heating and sourdough in cereal-based foods processing have gained more and more interest. However, there is little information about the application of sourdough combined with microwave heating in SSC production. This study revealed that sourdough addition increased the specific volume, porosity, texture, and consumer preference of MSSC, providing a natural, high-efficiency, and easy-to-operate means for the fabrication of high-quality fermented foods., (© 2020 Institute of Food Technologists®.)

Background: Water productivity improvement is fundamental to agricultural water use control, and the water footprint provides a new and comprehensive method for identifying the crop-water relationship. This study is intended to explore the spatiotemporal pattern and driving forces underlying the rice water footprint productivity (WFP) in China during the years 1996-2015 based on calculations of the provincial blue, green, gray, and white water footprints., Results: The national water footprint in paddy rice cultivation was 240.97 Gm 3 , and green water accounted for 43.9% of the total. The WFP was 0.795 kg m -3 and increased over time in all 30 provinces for which it was calculated. The growth rate in the northern provinces was greater than that in the southern part of the country. The WFP clustered geographically in all years observed. High-value provinces were concentrated to the south of the Yangtze River, whereas most of the provinces that showed a low WFP were distributed in the north China and northwest subregions. Precipitation and sunshine hours were the most obvious driving factors of rice WFP. The effects of agricultural input, e.g., agricultural machinery power, pesticides, and irrigation efficiency, on WFP also could not be ignored., Conclusion: The WFP is a comprehensive and useful index of the crop-water relationship and water-use efficiency. Improving agricultural input and irrigation technology are reliable approaches for WFP promotion. Areas in northeast China showed the most urgent need for improving the rice WFP, and the inclusion of the main grain producing areas in the Yangtze River Basin will further reduce ineffective water occupancy to improve water-use efficiency. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry., (© 2019 Society of Chemical Industry.)

Industrial wastewater is the largest contributor of toxic pollutants and third-largest contributor of nutrients to bodies of water in China, and understanding the characteristics of such pollution is important for water pollution control. In this study, the industrial gray water footprint (GWF) of each industry sector in China's 31 provinces in 2015 was calculated to identify the pollution characteristics of industrial wastewater discharge and determine how to efficiently allocate investment to pollution reduction. We show that the total industrial GWF of China was 300 billion m 3 in 2015 and that the major pollutants were petroleum pollutant (PP), ammonia nitrogen (NH 3 -N), volatile phenol (VP), and chemical oxygen demand (COD). The water pollution level (WPL) was higher than 1 in Ningxia, Shanxi, Hebei, Tianjin, Shanghai, Henan, and Shandong, indicating that industrial pollution exceeded the carrying capacity of local water bodies in these seven regions. Given equivalent total investment, a scenario that takes the total reduction of the industrial GWF weighted by the WPL in each region as the investment target can better allocate funds to control industrial wastewater pollution in regions with high WPLs relative to a scenario in which investment targets the reduction of the unweighted total industrial GWF. For further industrial GWF reduction in regions with high WPLs, it is crucial to adjust the industrial structure and to upgrade relevant technologies.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the focuses, motivations and challenges of achieving campus sustainability in Chinese higher education institutions (HEIs). Design/methodology/approach: A multisite case study was conducted in Changchun City, Jilin, where eight HEIs of various types were examined. Structured interviews with school managers, students and government officials were accompanied with analysis of relevant documents. Findings: The focuses of sustainability among the studied HEIs were on water and energy conservation and on non-technical initiatives. The focuses can be explained by motivations and challenges. The HEIs are motivated by government and financial pressures and face challenges in limited accessibility to funding. The reliance of non-technical initiatives has negatively impacted student welfare and has become unpopular among students. Practical implications: The government is advised to increase funding to HEIs in relation to sustainability and to make the funding more equitable. The HEIs are advised to modify sustainability practices that severely affect the daily lives of students, to share the benefits of water and energy conservation with their students and to involve students in sustainability governance. Originality/value: This paper adds to the existing literature in two ways. First, it expands the geographical reach of the literature to developing countries, in general, and to China, in particular. Second, it adopts the multisite case study research approach to study the whole spectrum of Chinese HEIs and highlights the differences among these HEIs when it comes to sustainability.

Soil water repellency (SWR) exists in various soil ecosystems and can interrupt water infiltration and cause soil erosion. Anthropogenic land-use change can cause shifts in SWR and soil erosion resistance (SER) in sensitive soils. However, the direction and magnitude of these shifts in SWR and SER and their interrelations remain largely unclear. This study examined the changes in SWR, soil erodibility (K), and aggregate fractions in different land uses of a karst trough valley in southwest China. Soil samples were gathered from five land uses: cropland (CL), orchard (OP), secondary forest (SF), grassland (GL), and riverbank (RB), using a 1000 m × 1000 m grid, resulting in 210 sampling sites. Results showed that the water drop penetration time was significantly higher by 86.43%, 68.85%, and 71.47% in the SF, OP, and RB than in the CL, respectively (p < 0.05). The soil organic carbon (SOC) was the greatest in the SF and the lowest in the GL and CL (p < 0.05). The 1000-250 μm aggregate fraction, mean weight diameter (MWD), and geometric mean diameter (GMD) varied markedly among the different land uses (p < 0.05). The silt content, fractal dimension (D), and K were markedly lower in the RB than in the CL, OP, SF and GL (p < 0.05). The SWR had pronouncedly positive correlations with the SOC and 1000-250 μm aggregate fraction (p < 0.05). The K displayed a negative correlation with the GMD but a positive correlation with the D (p < 0.05). The structural equation modeling analysis revealed that the SOC was affected positively by the silt content and the 1000-250 μm aggregate fraction and negatively by the K. These factors directly regulated the SWR. Our results shed light on the mechanisms of land use changes impacting the SWR, SER and other soil properties in karst environments., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The positive correlation between diversity and production has been extensively documented. Given the intrinsic relationship between production and plant water consumption, it was anticipated that mixed forests would exhibit different water use compared to pure forests. In this study, the responses of water use to vapour pressure deficit were analyzed by monitoring the sap flow of Schima superba in both pure and mixed forests, as well as Castanopsis chinensis in mixed forest. Additionally, the relationships among leaf and stem traits were examined by measuring specific leaf area (SLA), N and P concentration per unit leaf mass, leaf δ 18 O and δ 13 C and wood density of sapwood (WD) during both wet and dry seasons. The results showed that S. superba demonstrated a comparable regulation of water use during both wet and dry seasons in mixed forest, whereas it exhibited less strict water use regulation during the wet season in comparison to the dry season in pure forest. Regardless of whether the forests were pure or mixed, both leaf δ 13 C and WD remained consistent across seasons, while there was an increase in SLA during the wet season compared to the dry season for S. superba. There was a different seasonal change in leaf δ 18 O for S. superba in pure and mixed forests. Water use and leaf economic spectrum may determine the adaptive strategies of coexisting species, and the coexisting tree species in mixed forest exhibited a resource-use differentiation, as indicated by seasonal variations in leaf and stem traits, likely explaining the conserved responses of sap flow to evaporative demand. Our research might provide insights into the impact of tree interaction on water use strategies and the water use-based forest management under current climate change., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

More than one billion people do not have access to an adequate water supply. In Gambia and Haiti, people live on less than 4 liters of water per day. By contrast, most toilets in the West use several times that amount of water for a single flush. The global distribution of water is making it increasingly difficult for poor people to access it, and movements to commodify water and privatize the industries that provide it exacerbate this situation, trapping the poorest in a cycle of water poverty. Much research has been done on the problem of water scarcity. However, the link between scarcity and water as a human right is rarely articulated, even the current index of the website of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has no entry for water. This paper proposes a human right to water. It then considers the consequent obligations the right to water imposes on those who control water resources, such as governments, water corporations, and international lending institutions. (Contains 75 notes.)

Nocturnal stomatal behaviour has the potential to exert a profound influence on plant-water relations, especially water use efficiency. However, we know very less about plant functional type differences in nocturnal stomatal conductance and their roles in plant stress adaptation, especially drought adaptation. To address this critical knowledge gap, we assessed diel leaf gas exchanges in eight ephemeral and perennial herbs growing on the southern edge of the Gurbantunggut Desert, Northwest China. For both ephemeral and perennial herbs, the nocturnal stomatal conductance (g s ) exceeded 30 % of daytime g s , except for an ephemeral herb (Malcolmia scorpioides). The nocturnal g s in the studied perennial herbs were significantly higher than it in the ephemeral herbs. The results suggest that circadian-driven stomatal priming plays a pivotal role in accelerating the attainment of steady-state g s during the morning for perennial herbs, thereby enhancing their capacity for carbon capture. Moreover, the nocturnal stomatal behaviour of the ephemeral herbs favored water retention in the morning, consequently enhanced intrinsic water use efficiency and long-term water use efficiency. In summary, plant functional type differences in the magnitude of nocturnal stomatal opening were related to differences in water acquisition and utilization and highlighted diverse water use strategies in the desert plants., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Despite the extensive research conducted on plant-soil-water interactions, the understanding of the role of plant water sources in different plant successional stages remains limited. In this study, we employed a combination of water isotopes (δ 2 H and δ 18 O) and leaf δ 13 C to investigate water use patterns and leaf water use efficiency (WUE) during the growing season (May to September 2021) in Hailuogou glacier forefronts in China. Our findings revealed that surface soil water and soil nutrient gradually increased during primary succession. Dominant plant species exhibited a preference for upper soil water uptake during the peak leaf out period (June to August), while they relied more on lower soil water sources during the post-leaf out period (May) or senescence (September to October). Furthermore, plants in late successional stages showed higher rates of water uptake from uppermost soil layers. Notably, there was a significant positive correlation between the percentage of water uptake by plants and available soil water content in middle and late stages. Additionally, our results indicated a gradual decrease in WUE with progression through succession, with shallow soil moisture utilization negatively impacting overall WUE across all succession stages. Path analysis further highlighted that surface soil moisture (0- 20 cm) and middle layer nutrient availability (20- 50 cm) played crucial roles in determining WUE. Overall, this research emphasizes the critical influence of water source selection on plant succession dynamics while elucidating underlying mechanisms linking succession with plant water consumption., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Xiangyang Sun reports financial support was provided by National Natural Science Foundation of China. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Palaeogeological events and climate oscillations profoundly impact the demographics and distributions of small-range species, increasing the extinction risk. The largest water strider worldwide, Gigantometra gigas (Hemiptera: Gerridae), exhibits restricted distributions in Vietnam and southern China. Herein, we generated three genomic datasets (mitogenomes, 146 nuclear protein-coding genes and single nucleotide polymorphisms) with ecological niche modelling (ENM) to explicitly test whether the present-day distribution of G. gigas actually resulted from geographical and climatic effects. We found that the origin of this largest water strider reached the divergence time of the genus within Gerridae, providing a greater opportunity to explore its response to geographic movements. The right-lateral motion of the Red River Fault facilitated the divergence of two phylogeographic lineages, resulting in the "north-south component" genetic pattern in G. gigas. The Hainan and southeast Vietnam populations of the southern linage were completely separated by the Beibu Gulf but exhibited similar genetic compositions, confirming that Hainan had a continental origin and that Hainan Island joined with the Indo-China Peninsula to promote gene exchange among populations. Additionally, we noticed the low genetic diversity but long demographic history of the northern lineage, which displayed population dynamics opposite to those of other organisms. Integrating the demographic changes and ENM findings revealed that suitable habitat contraction and rapid demographic decline during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) triggered the low genetic diversity of the northern lineage. Overall, the demographic history of the largest water strider was mainly shaped by geographical features, and first provided evidence from the phylogeographic perspective of aquatic insects to support the hypothesis of Hainan Island shifting., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Little is known in the international academic community about Chinese‐language research on water management. To remedy this deficit, this paper reviews current mainland Chinese understandings of the role of large‐scale water infrastructures as tools of water resources management. We reviewed 461 papers published in mainland Chinese journals by Chinese scholars. This review suggests that the dominant approach to water management reflects the confines of government priorities—large‐scale, concrete‐heavy, infrastructure‐based means of moving water around the country so as to meet demands and stimulate economic growth. Suppression of critical voices means that infrastructure is generally rendered apolitical: the critiques are about practical issues, such as technological, managerial, or administrative problems. There are exceptions to this characterization that adopt more critical frames; however, they reflect on water management elsewhere or in the past rather than on contemporary China. While these more critical papers are interesting and important contributions to our understanding of the politics of hydraulic infrastructures, the literature as a whole says little about the politics of infrastructure in China now. In effect, much of the literature in Chinese on water management in China simply acts as an arm of a machine—a network of corporations, universities, international institutions, and arms of the government, together tasked with identifying and framing what are water management issues, formulating standardized procedures for tackling those issues, and then constructing solutions to them. This article is categorized under:Engineering Water > Planning WaterHuman Water > Water Governance [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food security, water scarcity, and excessive fossil energy use pose considerable challenges to sustainable agriculture. To understand how rain-fed farming systems on the Loess Plateau, China, reconcile yield increases with ecological conservation, we conducted an integrated evaluation based on the denitrification-decomposition (DNDC) model, agricultural statistics data using the Food-Energy-Water (FEW) nexus indicator. The results showed that maize yields with ridge-furrow plastic film mulching (PFM) were 3479, 8942, and 11,124 kg ha -1 under low (50 kg N ha -1 ), medium (200 kg N ha -1 ), and high (350 kg N ha -1 ) nitrogen (N) fertilizer rates, respectively, and that PFM increased yield and water use efficiency (WUE) by 110-253 % and 166-205 % compared to using no mulching (control, CK), respectively. Plastic film mulching also increased net energy (126-436 %), energy use efficiency (81-578 %), energy productivity (100-670 %), and energy profitability (126-994 %), and nitrogen fertilizer, compound fertilizer, and diesel fuel consumption by agricultural machinery were the main energy inputs. The PFM system reduced water consumption during the maize growing season and the green water footprint and gray water footprint decreased by 66-74 % and 44-68 %, respectively. The FEW nexus indicator, based on a high production at low environmental cost scenario, was greater under the PFM system and had the widest spatial distribution area at the medium-N application rate. Among the environmental factors, the nexus indicator was negatively correlated with precipitation (-0.37), air temperature (-0.36), and the aridity index (-0.36), but positively correlated with elevation (0.17). Our results suggest that the PFM system promotes resource-saving while increasing yields and moves dryland agriculture in an environmentally friendly direction, thus promoting the sustainable development of agroecosystems., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Lake eutrophication mitigation measures have been implemented by ecological water diversion, however, the responses of carbon cycle to the human-derived hydrologic process still remains unclear. With a famous river-to-lake water diversion activity at eutrophic Lake Taihu, we attempted to fill the knowledge gap with integrative field measurements (2011-2017) of gas carbon (CO 2 and CH 4 ) flux, including CO 2 -equivalent, and dissolved carbon (DOC and DIC) at water-receiving zone and reference zone. Overall, results showed the artificial water diversion activity increased gas carbon emissions. At water-receiving zone, total gas carbon (expressed as CO 2 -equivalent) emissions increased significantly due to the occurring of water diversion, with CO 2 flux increasing from 9.31 ± 16.28 to 18.16 ± 12.96 mmol C m -2 d -1 . Meanwhile, CH 4 emissions at water-receiving zone (0.06 ± 0.05 mmol C m -2 d -1 ) was double of that at reference zone. Water diversion decreased DOC but increased DIC especially at inflowing river mouth. Temporal variability of carbon emissions and dissolved carbon were linked to water temperature, chlorophyll a, and nutrient, but less or negligible dependency on these environment variables were found with diversion occurring. Water diversion may increase gas carbon production via stimulating DOC mineralization with nutrient enrichment, which potentially contribute to increasing carbon emissions and decreasing DOC at the same time and the significant correlation between CO 2 flux and CH 4 flux. Our study provided new insights into carbon biogeochemical processes, which may help to predict carbon fate under hydrologic changes of lakes., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

With increasing internal and external risks to the WEF system, a single emphasis on efficiency or a lopsided pursuit of resilience can lead to difficulties in adapting to complex changes and resource redundancy. Revealing the synergistic evolutionary characteristics between efficiency and resilience of the WEF system is an effective method to deal with systemic internal and external risks. However, the current study of the WEF system lacks a synergistic perspective on resilience and efficiency. Thus, taking Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle (CCEC) as the research object and its geospatial boundary as the system boundary, this paper adopted the entropy-topsis model to evaluate the WEF resilience, and applied the super-efficient SBM model to measure the WEF efficiency accurately, which fully considered the non-expected outputs in the process of resource utilization. Then, applying the development coordination degree model, the synergistic relationship between the two was measured. The results indicated that: the average value of WEF resilience in CCEC increased from 0.414 to 0.485 and showed spatial characteristics of west＞east＞central. The WEF efficiency interval was 0.79-0.93, and cities with average WEF efficiency reaching the effective production frontier accounted for only 37.5%. The clustered distribution of the synergy levels intensified. The number of cities with primary, medium, more advanced, and advanced levels was 6, 6, 1, and 3, respectively, with primary and medium synergy levels dominating. The findings suggest that cities should strengthen regional exchanges and formulate targeted measures based on their own situations. In addition, CCEC should possess a comprehensive understanding of the interdependencies and conflicts that arise between resilience and efficiency throughout the decision-making procedure., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Due to the large spatiotemporal variability in the processes controlling carbon emissions from lakes, estimates of global lake carbon emission remain uncertain. Identifying the most reliable predictors of CO 2 and CH 4 concentrations across different hydrological features can enhance the accuracy of carbon emission estimates locally and globally. Here, we used data from 71 lakes in Southwest China varying in surface area (0.01‒702.4 km 2 ), mean depth (< 1‒89.6 m), and climate to analyze differences in CO 2 and CH 4 concentrations and their driving mechanisms between the dry and rainy seasons and between different mixing regimes. The results showed that the average concentrations of CO 2 and CH 4 in the rainy season were 23.9 ± 18.8 μmol L -1 and 2.5 ± 4.9 μmol L -1 , respectively, which were significantly higher than in the dry season (10.5 ± 10.3 μmol L -1 and 1.8 ± 4.2 μmol L -1 , respectively). The average concentrations of CO 2 and CH 4 at the vertically mixed sites were 24.1 ± 21.8 μmol L -1 and 2.6 ± 5.4 μmol L -1 , being higher than those at the stratified sites (14.8 ± 13.4 μmol L -1 and 1.7 ± 3.5 μmol L -1 , respectively). Moreover, the environmental factors were divided into four categories, i.e., system productivity (represented by the contents of total nitrogen, total phosphorus, chlorophyll a and dissolved organic matter), physicochemical factors (water temperature, Secchi disk depth, dissolved oxygen and pH value), lake morphology (lake area, water depth and drainage ratio), and geoclimatic factors (altitude, wind speed, precipitation and land-use intensity). In addition to the regression and variance partitioning analyses between the concentrations of CO 2 and CH 4 and environmental factors, the cascading effects of environmental factors on CO 2 and CH 4 concentrations were further elucidated under four distinct hydrological scenarios, indicating the different driving mechanisms between the scenarios. Lake morphology and geoclimatic factors were the main direct drivers of the carbon concentrations during the rainy season, while they indirectly affected the carbon concentrations via influencing physicochemical factors and further system productivity during the dry season; although lake morphology and geoclimatic factors directly contributed to the carbon concentrations at the vertically mixed and stratified sites, the direct effect of system productivity was only observed at the stratified sites. Our results emphasize that, when estimating carbon emissions from lakes at broad spatial scales, it is essential to consider the influence of precipitation-related seasons and lake mixing regimes., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The South-to-North Water Diversion Project (SNWDP) is believed to drive the next phase of sustainable productivity growth, meeting growing water demand, so as to address increasing environmental sustainability challenges. The Middle Route of SNWDP is regarded as an extremely large long-distance inter-basin water diversion project, which has benefited Henan, Hebei, Tianjin and Beijing since 2014 with great sustainable changes to the cities, groundwater, ecological environment, industrial structure and social development of the beneficiary areas. Taking the number of industrial enterprises above designated size (IEDS) in the water-receiving areas as the research object, this paper takes the year of policy implementation 2014 as the basic time point, evaluating the change of the number of IEDS in the beneficiary areas of the Middle Route of SNWDP through difference-in-difference model. The results show that: (1) The Middle Route of SNWDP promotes the additional growth of the number of IEDS in the beneficiary areas. (2) When the Middle Route of SNWDP promotes the growth of the number of IEDS in beneficiary areas, there is no regional difference for regions with different development levels. (3) The reasons why the Middle Route of SNWDP contributes to the additional growth of the number of IEDS are composed of promoting mixed ownership reform of enterprises in beneficiary areas, increasing water supply and increasing population. However, the Middle Route of SNWDP has not had a significant impact on the traditional total factor productivity or the components of production factors, technology and capital. From the final outcome, the South-to-North Water Diversion Project has played a facilitating role in the sustainable development of large-scale enterprises in the water-receiving areas., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Wang, Chi. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Organophosphate esters (OPEs), which are phosphoric acid ester derivatives, are anthropogenic substances that are widely used in commerce. Nevertheless, there is growing public concern about these ubiquitous contaminants, which are frequently detected in contaminated water sources. OPEs are mostly emitted by industrial operations, and the primary routes of human exposure to OPEs include food intake and dermal absorption. Because of their negative effects on both human health and the environment, it is clear that innovative methods are needed to facilitate their eradication. In this study, we present a comprehensive overview of the existing characteristics and origins of OPEs, their possible impacts on human health, and the merits, drawbacks, and future possibilities of contemporary sophisticated remediation methods. Current advanced remediation approaches for OPEs include adsorption, degradation (advanced oxidation, advanced reduction, and redox technology), membrane filtration, and municipal wastewater treatment plants, degradation and adsorption are the most promising removal technologies. Meanwhile, we proposed potential areas for future research (appropriate management approaches, exploring the combination treatment process, economic factors, and potential for secondary pollution). Collectively, this work gives a comprehensive understanding of OPEs, providing useful insights for future research on OPEs pollution., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The takeaway food and delivery market is developing rapidly in China, raising concerns about the impacts of takeaway dishes on both health and the environment. Here, we compare the environmental impact and nutritional performance of 32 popular takeaway dishes, which stem from the top 10 best-selling takeaway dishes in 10 large cities in China. We select water footprint and water scarcity footprint indicators to represent the environmental impact, and the Food Compass Score to measure nutritional quality. Our results show that 24 out of 32 takeaway dishes contains meat, which has a higher water footprint. The inhabitants of water stressed Chinese cities, mainly located in northern China, tend to favor meat dishes, resulting in a larger water scarcity footprint. The results also highlight the lower nutrition quality of the majority of takeaway dishes, with only three takeaway dishes meeting acceptable environmental and nutritional standards. Our study highlights the importance of analyzing dishes rather than individual foods, which can facilitate sustainable dietary choices for consumers., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Dual water isotopes were investigated to reveal the seasonal distribution of water masses and their impacts on nutrient supply in southern Beibu Gulf. In summer and winter, the South China Sea (SCS) water (61-69%) contributed the most to the seawater in the southern Beibu Gulf, followed by the diluted water (24-34%), and the west-Guangdong coastal current (WGCC) (5-7%) had the minimum contribution. However, the major nutrient source shifted from the diluted water in summer (39-73%) to the SCS water (57-90%) in winter. The WGCC's impact on nutrient loads was relatively small (2-10% in summer, 4-34% in winter). Our results highlight the control of nutrient supply was the SCS water (winter) and diluted water (summer), with limited influence from the WGCC, providing new insights into the impact of water mass transportation and its nutrient supply in the Beibu Gulf., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The interaction between water environment and social economy at a basin scale is complex and challenging to quantify. To address this issue, this study proposes an integrated framework that builds parametric connections among water, contaminants, administrative regions, and social activities. The framework, known as the water environmental carrying capacity (WECC) optimization framework, effectively captures the intricacy of the interaction and integrates socio-economic parameter structure relationships, a water environmental model, a WECC optimization model, and a sensitivity analysis of regulatory parameters. Applied to the Anhui-Huaihe Basin in mid-eastern China, the framework considers nine administrative regions and three economic factors: industry, agriculture, and GDP per capita (pGDP). Results show that the current water environmental carrying capacity of the watershed is insufficient to meet socio-economic development requirements. After optimization, the WECC for industry, agriculture, and pGDP in the region increased by 22.40%, 26.59%, and 15.08% respectively. Overall COD and NH 4 -N discharge decreased by 13.6% and 14.7% respectively, effectively reducing pollution loads in rivers and enhancing sustainable development potential. At the regional scale, optimization for industry, agriculture, and pGDP exhibited different characteristics, but all aimed to improve efficiency by reducing the K value (pollution discharge/output value ratio). Regions with industrial treatment rates (α wt ) below 0.8 should prioritize increasing treatment rates, while those above 0.8 should consider industrial upgrading for enhanced efficiency. For agriculture, important sensitive parameters for farming and livestock breeding are the proportion of high standard farmland (α s ) and the scale breeding ratio (α b ), which should be increased to above 0.15 and 0.83 respectively for all regions to achieve agricultural optimization. For pGDP optimization, the focus is on improving living environments and reducing pollution discharge, with crucial measures including collecting and treating rural domestic sewage, where the rural toilet improvement rate (α t ) in each region should be increased to 0.78 or above. The results emphasize the need for both interregional allocation and intraregional planning to achieve comprehensive basin optimization and a harmonious balance between regional development and water environment., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Plantations have great potential for carbon sequestration and play a vital role in the water cycle. However, it is challenging to accurately estimate the carbon and water fluxes of plantations, and the impact of biophysical drivers on the coupling of carbon and water fluxes is not well understood. Thus, we modified the phenology module of the Biome-BGC model and optimized the parameters with the aim of simulating the gross primary productivity (GPP), evapotranspiration (ET) and water use efficiency (WUE) of a warm-temperate plantation in northern China from 2009 to 2020. Photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) showed significant positive correlations on GPP and WUE during the first stage of the growing season (S1: from early April to late July). Active accumulated temperature (T aa ) mainly controlled the changes in GPP and ET during the second stage (S2: between the end of July and early November). Throughout the growing season, soil water content dominated daily GPP and WUE, whereas T aa regulated ET. The optimized Biome-BGC model performed better than the original model in simulating GPP and ET. Compared with the values simulated by the original model, root mean square error decreased by 7.89 % and 15.97 % for the simulated GPP and ET, respectively, while the determination coefficient increased from 0.77 to 0.81 for simulated GPP and from 0.51 to 0.62 for simulated ET. The results of this study demonstrated that the optimized model more accurately assessed carbon sequestration and water consumption in plantations., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

In this study, a SEMs-bootstrap-ANN method was presented for constructing prediction intervals (PIs) of water demand under shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs). The primary objective was to examine the evolution, disparities, and impacts on water security. Initially, a bootstrap algorithm and an artificial neural network (ANN) were combined to form a bootstrap-ANN model, which determined the centres and widths of the PIs at a specified significance level by estimating the distributions of prediction values and errors. The water demand factors in SSPs were projected using socioeconomic models like Cobb-Douglas, based on the narratives of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). By incorporating these factors into the bootstrap-ANN model, the study obtained the temporal changes of water demand PIs in SSPs, while quantifying the differences and water security implications using the interval difference index (IDI) and surface water exploration index (SWEI). The case study focused on Sichuan province, and the model performance was evaluated via the evaluation indices and cross-validation. The results demonstrated five key findings. Firstly, the proposed method showed a greater PICP of 0.985, slightly larger PIRAW of 9.83%, and higher MAIS than other methods in the historical dataset, indicating a small disadvantage in width in return for better accuracy and overall performance. Secondly, the reliability of the results in the SSP period was supported by the PIRAWs (mostly within 15%), the cross errors (approximately 5%), and their performance in 2021 (the PIs in SSP2 almost covered all true values). Thirdly, the total water demands in all SSPs within Sichuan Province exhibited a consistent upward trajectory, with SSP5 displaying the highest increase of 44-63% compared to current water usage. Fourthly, among the four SSPs, the most substantial disparities were observed between SSP5 and SSP3, reaching a maximum difference of 32%. Conversely, the disparities between SSP2 and SSP1 fluctuated around zero, transitioning from negative to positive trends. Notably, from an environmental perspective, SSP1 was considered preferable to SSP2. Lastly, the SWEIs, which reflected water security conditions in Sichuan Province under the four SSPs, ranked in the following order: SSP3, SSP1, SSP2, and SSP5, indicating a progressively worsening situation. Despite not reaching stress thresholds even during dry years until 2100, the water security conditions could deteriorate by 28-46% compared to historical extremes and by 3-16% compared to extended extremes in dry years., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Unbalanced land use development has resulted in water scarcity, high energy consumption, and a significant increase in carbon emissions. Complex and changing environments make it more difficult to manage land use sustainably. This study constructed a variety of future change scenarios coupling climate and socioeconomic development and developed a multidimensional land use spatial optimization (LUSO) model linked with water-energy-carbon. The model is solved using a nondominated sorting genetic algorithm-III (NSGA-Ⅲ) coupled with the information feedback model (IFM). The advantages of this framework include: (1) LUSO based on the clarification of the interactions between different land use types and water-energy-carbon; (2) trade-offs between dimensions are considered to achieve coordinated multidimensional development of the economy, resources, environment, and spatial conversion; and (3) a spatial optimization pattern of land use in response to climate change and socioeconomic development changes can be obtained. The model framework is applied to the Mid-Yangtze River City Cluster for empirical analysis. The results show that socioeconomic development can lead to rapid changes in land use patterns, especially in cultivated and construction land. By 2030, the optimized land use pattern under the intermediate route model is the most suitable land use scenario for the region to achieve sustainable development. Under this scenario, the area of construction land increased by 22.09%, the area of cultivated land decreased by 2.2%, the economic output increased by 76,678.31 (10 12 yuan), and the carbon emissions increased by only 5677.79 (10 7  kg), with an overall sustainability level of 0.85. This study can provide decision-makers with sustainable land resource management options that can respond to changing environments and achieve multidimensional synergistic development., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Understanding the sensitivity of vegetation growth and greenness to vegetation water content change is crucial for elucidating the mechanism of terrestrial ecosystems response to water availability change caused by climate change. Nevertheless, we still have limited knowledge of such aspects in urban in different climatic contexts under the influence of human activities. In this study, we employed Google Earth Engine (GEE), remote sensing satellite imagery, meteorological data, and Vegetation Photosynthesis Model (VPM) to explore the spatiotemporal pattern of vegetation growth and greenness sensitivity to vegetation water content in three megacities (Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou) located in eastern China from 2001 to 2020. We found a significant increase (slope > 0, p < 0.05) in the sensitivity of urban vegetation growth and greenness to vegetation water content (S LSWI ). This indicates the increasing dependence of urban vegetation ecosystems on vegetation water resources. Moreover, evident spatial heterogeneity was observed in both S LSWI and the trends of S LSWI , and spatial heterogeneity in S LSWI and the trends of S LSWI was also present among identical vegetation types within the same city. Additionally, both S LSWI of vegetation growth and greenness and the trend of S LSWI showed obvious spatial distribution differences (e.g., standard deviations of trends in S LSWI of open evergreen needle-leaved forest of GPP is 14.36 × 10 -2 and standard deviations of trends in S LSWI of open evergreen needle-leaved forest of EVI is 10.16 × 10 -2 ), closely associated with factors such as vegetation type, climatic conditions, and anthropogenic influences., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Effective prediction of water demand is a prerequisite for decision makers to achieve reliable management of water supply. Currently, the research on water demand prediction focuses on point prediction method. In this study, we constructed a GA-BP-KDE hybrid interval water demand prediction model by combining non-parametric estimation and point prediction. Multiple metaheuristic algorithms were used to optimize the Back-Propagation Neural Network (BP) and Kernel Extreme Learning Machine (KELM) network structures. The performance of the water demand point prediction models was compared by the Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE), Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE), Kling-Gupta Efficiency (KGE), computation time, and fitness convergence curves. The kernel density estimation method (KDE) and the normal distribution method were used to fit the distribution of errors. The probability density function with the best fitting degree was selected based on the index G. The shortest confidence interval under 95% confidence was calculated according to the asymmetry of the error distribution. We predicted the impact indicator values for 2025 using the exponential smoothing method, and obtained water demand prediction intervals for various water use sectors. The results showed that the GA-BP model was the optimal model as it exhibited the highest computational efficiency, algorithmic stability, and prediction accuracy. The three prediction intervals estimated after adjusting the KDE bandwidth parameter covered most of the sample points in the test set. The prediction intervals of the four water use sectors were evaluated as F values of 1.6845, 1.3294, 1.6237, and 1.3600, which indicates high accuracy and quality of the prediction intervals. The mixed water demand interval prediction based on GA-BP-KDE reduces the uncertainty of the point prediction results and can provide a basis for water resource management by decision makers., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

As a market-based water resource management, the water rights reform (WRR) will allocate water rights to water users and allow water users to trade water rights, which can realize the reallocation across water users. In this context, the adoption of water-saving irrigation (WSI) is an important technical form to adapt to the reform. Based on this, this paper studies the impacts of the WRR on WSI using the difference-in-differences (DID) strategy. The results show that the WRR could increase the land area for WSI by an average of 13.63%. The WRR could promote the expansion of high-efficiency irrigation mainly because the WRR could promote the expansion of spray and drip irrigation areas, and micro-irrigation land areas, which are high-efficiency water-saving irrigation technologies. In addition, the WRR also could improve agricultural production by increasing agricultural water productivity and planting area (including the sown area of grain crops and cash crops), but the WRR does not reduce agricultural water extraction. Therefore, the WRR could increase agricultural production without increasing agricultural water extraction.

Urban rainstorm and waterlogging occurred more frequently in recent years, causing huge economic losses and serious social harms. Accurate rainstorm and waterlogging simulation is of significant value for disaster prevention and mitigation. This paper proposed a numerical model for urban rainstorm and waterlogging based on the Storm Water Management Model (SWMM) and Geographic Information System (GIS), and the model was applied in Lianhu district of Xi'an city of China. Furthermore, the effects of rainfall characteristics, pipe network implementation level and urbanization level on waterlogging were explored from the perspectives of spatial distribution of waterlogging points, drainage capacity of pipe network and surface runoff generation and confluence. The results show that: (1) with the increase of rainfall recurrence period, the peak of total water accumulating volume, the average decline rate of water accumulating volume and the number of waterlogging nodes increase; (2) optimizing the pipe diameter can shorten the average overload time of the pipe network from the entire pipe network, but for a single pipe, optimizing the pipe diameter may lead to overloading of unoptimized downstream pipeline; (3) the lower the imperviousness, the less the number of waterlogging nodes and average time of water accumulating, and (4) the west, northwest and southwest areas are relatively affected by the imperviousness, only improving the underlying surface conditions has limited influence on waterlogging in the study area. This study can provide reference for urban waterlogging prevention and reduction and pipe network reconstruction., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

In the postharvest storage of Chinese bayberry, microbial loads and exogenous contaminants pose significant challenges, leading to rapid decay and deterioration in quality. This study introduced a synergistic approach, combining ultrasonics and slightly acidic electrolyzed water (US + SAEW), to enhance the postharvest storage quality of Chinese bayberry. This approach was benchmarked against conventional water washing (CW), standalone ultrasonic (US), and slightly acidic electrolyzed water (SAEW) processing. Notably, compared to CW, the US + SAEW method enhanced iprodione and procymidone removal rates by 69.62 % and 72.45 % respectively, improved dirt removal efficiency by 122.87 %, repelled drosophila melanogaster larvae by 58.33 %, and curtailed total bacterial, mold & yeast growth by 78.18 % and 83.09 %. Furthermore, it postponed the appearance of sample decay by 6 days, compared to 4 days for both US and SAEW alone. From a physicochemical perspective, compared to CW-treated samples, US + SAEW processing mitigated weight loss and color deviations, retained hardness, amplified the sugar-acid ratio, augmented activities of phenylalanine ammonia-lyase, superoxide dismutase, and catalase enzymes, suppressed polyphenol oxidase activity and malondialdehyde synthesis, and preserved total phenolic, anthocyanin, and antioxidant levels. These findings underscore the potential of US + SAEW as a strategic tool to preserve the quality of Chinese bayberry during postharvest storage., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The biosafety criteria of ammonia nitrogen (NH 3 -N) exhibit uncertainties, posing challenges to the assessment of the hazard of social NH 3 -N load to aquatic ecosystem. To evaluate this ecological hazard in China, an ecological grey water footprint (E-GWF) model is designed based on the uncertainty analysis theory. In the E-GWF model, the acute toxicity is quantified via short-term E-GWF (E-GWF s ) and acute risk (AR), while its chronic toxicity is quantified via long-term E-GWF (E-GWF l ) and chronic risk (CR). Results show the following. (i) Compared with the conventional GWF, the E-GWF performs better in the uncertainty analysis of the biosafety threshold, and it is more effective in ecological risk evaluation and environment planning. (ii) The E-GWF s and E-GWF l of NH 3 -N in China are 309.4 and 2382.5 billion m 3 , respectively. Regions with large E-GWF are concentrated in the east and south, while regions with small E-GWF are concentrated in the north and west. (iii) The ecological risks of NH 3 -N in Shanghai City, Tianjin City, Ningxia Province, Hebei Province, Jiangsu Province, Shanxi Province, and Shandong Province belong to the "High" grade. The ecological risks of NH 3 -N in Tibet and Qinghai Province belong to the "Negligible" grade. (iv) The ecological risk of NH 3 -N in China is mostly determined by industrial and domestic pollution. (v) To control the risk within allowable grades, the social NH 3 -N pollution load of China should be decreased to 988.7 kilotons., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Agricultural production consumes the majority of global freshwater resources. The worsening water scarcity has imposed significant stress on agricultural production when regions seek food self-sufficiency. To seek optimal allocation of spatial agricultural water and land resources in each water function zone of the objective region, a multi-objective optimization model was developed to tackle the trade-offs between the water-saving objective and the economic benefit objective considering virtual water trade (VWT). The cultivated area of each crop in each water function zone was taken into account as the decision variable, while a set of strong constraints were used to restrict land resources and water availability. Then, a decomposition-simplex method aggregation algorithm (DSMA) was proposed to solve this nonlinear, bounding-constrained, and multi-objective optimization model. Based on the quantitative analysis of the spatial blue and green virtual water in each agricultural product, the proposed methodology was applied to a real-world, provincial-scale region in China (i.e., Jiangsu Province). The optimized results provided 18 Pareto solutions to reallocate the land resources in the 21 IV-level water function zones of Jiangsu Province, considering four major rainy-season crops and two dry-season crops. Compared to the actual scenario, the superior scheme increased by 7.95% (5.6 × 10 9 RMB) for economic trade and decreased by 1.77% (2.0 × 10 9  m 3 ) for agricultural water consumption. It was mainly because the potential of spatial blue and green virtual water in Jiangsu was fully exploited by improving spatial land resource allocation. The food security of Jiangsu could be guaranteed by achieving self-sufficiency in the superior scheme, and the total VWT in the optimal scheme was 2.2 times more than the actual scenario. The results provided a systematic decision-support methodology from the perspective of spatial virtual water coordination, yet, the methodology is widely applicable., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

This paper analyzes agricultural pathways and the impacts of land requisition from dam construction in a Catholic community in Tibetan Southwest China. Cizhong Village is unique for its Catholic religion and unique agroecology of growing paddy rice and grapes for household winemaking, one of the very few ethnic Tibetan communities to do so. This unique agriculture is due to the community being located at the boundary between two larger culinary/agricultural spheres, rice boiling, and wheat grinding peoples. The situation has changed with a construction of a large dam, which caused another community to be moved on top of the village's paddy fields. In the context of this issue on food politics, the paper also highlights the ways in which new global forces related to infrastructure (dam building), are disabling unique interfacing forms of self-sufficient food production, leading to emotional responses among rural farming communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aerosol hygroscopicity and liquid water content (ALWC) have important influences on the environmental and climate effect of aerosols. In this study, we measured the hygroscopic growth factors (GF) of particles with dry diameters of 40, 80, 150, and 200 nm during the wintertime in Nanjing. Both the GF-derived hygroscopicity parameter (κ gf ) and ALWC increased with particle size, but displayed differing diurnal variations, with κ gf peaking around the midday, while ALWC peaking in the early morning. Nitrate, ammonium and oxygenated organic aerosols (OOA) were found as the chemical components mostly strongly correlated with ALWC. A closure study suggests that during midday photo-oxidation and nighttime high ALWC periods, the κ of organic aerosols (κ org ) was underestimated when using previous parameterizations. Accordingly, we re-constructed parameterizations for κ org and the oxidation level of organics for these periods, which indicates a higher hygroscopicity of photochemically formed OOA than the aqueous OOA, yet both being much higher than the generally assumed OOA hygroscopicity. Additionally, in a typical high ALWC episode, concurrently increased ALWC, nitrate, OOA as well as aerosol surface area and mass concentrations were observed under elevated ambient RH. This strongly indicates a coupled effect that the hygroscopic secondary aerosols, in particular nitrate with strong hygroscopicity, led to large increase in ALWC, which in turn synergistically boosted nitrate and OOA formation by heterogeneous/aqueous reactions. Such interaction may represent an important mechanism contributing to enhanced formation of secondary aerosols and rapid growth of fine particulate matter under relatively high RH conditions., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Water resource shortage and water pollution are prominent and urgent resource and environment problems. Industrial water consumption and sewage discharges account for a large proportion of the total sewage discharge of China. Therefore, scientifically regulating the water consumption and sewage discharge of industrial enterprises can effectively alleviate water scarcity and pollution problems. By establishing a multi-agent model, this study simulates the water use behavior of industrial enterprises, exploring the responses of industrial enterprises to a different type of scenarios for water management that can coordinate economic and environmental benefits. The purpose is to reduce the water consumption and pollutant emissions of industrial enterprises while achieving economic benefits, so as to provide policy references for water authorities. The results show that: 1) The three policies of water price, water resource tax and emission reduction subsidy can effectively regulate the water consumption and sewage discharge of enterprises. 2) Water price and water resource tax rate need to be controlled within a reasonable range. Appropriate water price and water resource tax rate can encourage enterprises to increase R&D investment. On this basis, it is suggested to emphasize the two-way influence of the government and enterprises, continue to implement water resources management policies such as water resources tax, so as to promote the balance between ecology and economy., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The water environmental problems associated with rapid socioeconomic growth have drawn widespread attention from the government and the public. Revealing the decoupling mechanism between the social economy and lake water environment has become an important breakthrough point to seek the pathways of sustainable economic development. To investigate the decoupling process of the social economy‒lake water environmental system, this study proposes a comprehensive evaluation model, which integrates the Driving force-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) model, projection pursuit method, and Tapio decoupling model; and then applies it to the case study of Hefei City and Lake Chaohu in China in 2021-2035. Three typical scenarios of current, social economy, and water environment are designed and simulated using the DPSIR model to evaluate the dynamic decoupling relationships under various development patterns. We found that the DPSIR indexes had a fluctuating upward trend from 2009 to 2020, with a synchronous improvement trend of the social economy and lake water environment. Meanwhile, the Tapio decoupling analysis showed that the decoupling relationships between socioeconomic driver forces, response strategies and the status of lake water environment was mostly strongly decoupled and weakly decoupled during 2009-2020. However, there was still an inconsistency between the improvement rate of the lake water environment and the increase rate of the response strategies. During the 2021-2035 simulation period, the DPSIR indexes of all scenarios depicts an overall increasing trend. The decoupling states of S&I-D&P and S&I-R generally tend to be consistent under three regulation scenarios. Among them, the water environment scenario outperforms other scenarios, and the social economy scenario performs worst. Overall, the decoupling of the social economy and lake water environment can attribute to both the transformation of socioeconomic development patterns and the increase of water environmental protection efforts., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Seasonal sediment internal phosphorus (P) release is known to affect annual algal blooms in eutrophic lakes. In this study, a year-long field investigation and laboratory sediment core incubation were conducted to study the relationship between sediment internal P cycling and algal growth in Lake Taihu. The results indicated that the concentrations of water total phosphorus (TP) and chlorophyll-a (Chla) correlated with seasonal temperature and were assumed to be caused by internal P release. From cold winter to warm seasons, sediment internal P (porewater P concentration and P flux) exhibits dynamic changes. Sediment porewater soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP) and its flux in the summer were approximately five times and eight times those during winter, respectively. The release of sediment mobile P in the summer decreases its concentration and can supply SRP for algal blooms. Laboratory core incubation indicated that Chla and phycocyanin concentrations in the overlying water showed similar changes to sediment porewater P and P flux when cores were incubated from low to high temperature. The results of this study indicated that warmer conditions could increase the sediment porewater P concentration and sediment P flux into the bottom waters and consequently enhance sediment P availability to algae. This study provides new insights into the relationship between internal sediment P cycling and algal blooms in Lake Taihu., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

As the requirements for environmental protection and high-efficiency economies increase, grain production (GP) across the globe faces more stringent ecological constraints and economic pressure. Understanding the relationships between natural resources and economic and agricultural factors in grain-producing regions is paramount for ensuring global food security. This paper proposes a methodological framework to explore the relationships between water and soil resources (WSRs), economic input factors (EIFs), and GP. We employed the northeast region of China as a case study to advance our understanding of the factors driving the development of grain-producing capacity. We first constructed and calculated the region's water and soil comprehensive index (WSCI) to describe water-soil properties. We then used hotspot analysis to explore the spatial agglomeration characteristics of WSRs, EIFs, and GP. Finally, we used threshold regression analysis to understand the effects of EIFs and GP with the WSCI as the threshold variable. With the improvement of the WSCI, the positive impact of fertilizer and irrigation on GP shows a U-shaped curve in elasticity coefficients. The positive effect of agricultural machinery on GP decreases significantly, and the impact of labor input on GP is insignificant. These results provide new insights into the relationship between WSRs, EIFs, and GP and a reference for improving GP efficiency globally. This work thus contributes to advancing our capabilities to enable food security while considering aspects of sustainable agriculture in important grain-producing regions across the globe., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Climate projections foresee intense precipitation and long-term drought events is increasing with consequent rapid changes in surface water bodies in a short period. In areas with drastic hydrological changes, achieving accurate and rapid mapping of these phenomena in combination with hydrologic variability characteristics is a key of effective emergency management and disaster risk reduction plans. This study presents an automatic method for mapping drought and flood hazards, particularly in regions with significant hydrological changes. We use Sentinel-1/2 and Landsat data to extract surface water and classify permanent and seasonal water bodies in historical periods, which serve as the basis for identifying flood or drought areas. The water extraction method combines index-based analysis for optical data and the region-Otsu method for radar data, ensuring accurate identification of water. The effectiveness of this approach is demonstrated through comparisons with existing products in Poyang Lake (China), the Po River Plain (Italy), and the Indus River Plain (Pakistan). Findings show a high similarity between the two, and our results can provide more specific details. Our method is particularly well-suited for areas with fluctuating hydrological conditions, can also map quickly without optical data. By effectively identifying areas affected by drought and flood hazards while mitigating errors from natural hydrological dynamics, this methodology contributes valuable insights to enhance emergency management and disaster risk reduction plans., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The essence of efficiency measurement is to model and estimate the performance of a complex system in a comparable form, and the key to modeling is to make the model as close to reality as possible. Based on data envelopment analysis (DEA) methods, this research proposes a layer-by-layer investigation framework for the black box. To illustrate the rationality of this logical framework, this paper presents a triple-opened dynamic recycling model with a series-parallel structure that allows us to assess the efficiency of the industrial water-related system in China. We obtain and compare the system efficiency under different scenarios for opening the black box. The results show that: (1) China's efforts to improve the performance of the resource use sub-stage through industrial production technology and management have been effective. (2) The performance of China's industrial water-related system strongly relates to the water supply subunit with a positive linear correlation. (3) The water supply subunit is the main foot-dragger in the system, and the government needs to place particular attention on improving the performance of labor in this subunit., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Understanding the spatial distribution and path tracing of eutrophication caused by nitrogen (N) enrichment in urban freshwater is crucial for whole-process and precise damage effect control. This study constructed a site-specific life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) model, covering the overall cause-effect chain from source emission to endpoint effect, to assess N-induced eutrophication potential at the species damage level. Applied to Guangzhou city, China, marked spatial disparities in eutrophication potential were derived, with higher values in the downtown areas driven by anthropogenic disturbances, such as wastewater discharge. Spatially differentiated measures were provided through eutrophication hotspot identification and driver tracking. This study offers a necessary complement for eutrophication impact category indicators in LCIA methodology and lays a scientific foundation for potential hotpots diagnosis and targeted mitigation policy-making., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. All the finance supporting organization and projects are acknowledged., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The identification and management of high-risk contaminants have raised great concern from governments. Facing the growing amount of data on the occurrence of emerging contaminants (ECs) in surface water, a deep mining and quality control strategy was developed to integrate data on all reported ECs in Chinese surface water over the past decade, and an exposure and effect database was further built. In addition, multilevel risk characterization was carried out to prioritize high-risk areas, contaminants and endpoints. A total of 1038 ECs, mainly pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) and industrial chemicals, were curated, with concentrations ranging from 0.02 pg/L to 533 µg/L. For individual risk, all the provinces had acceptable risks except for Henan, which was characterized with a medium chronic risk. Nine ECs, including 4-nonylphenol and estrone, dominated individual risks. Conversely, for multisubstance risk, 76.20% and 73.87% of aquatic organisms were affected acutely and chronically at the national level, with acute and chronic risks exceeding the safety threshold of 5% in 11 and 19 provinces, respectively. Nineteen ECs, including sitosterol and chyfluthrin, dominated the multisubstance risk. In addition, 9 MoAs mainly inducing electron transfer inhibition, neurotoxicity and narcosis toxicity are high-risk endpoints. The study revealed the ecological risk status and key risk entities of Chinese surface waters, which provided the latest data to support the control of ECs in China., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)