The prevalence of mental health disorders, a key disability cause, is linked to demographic and socioeconomic factors. However, limited data exists on mental health and the urban environment. Urbanization exposes populations to environmental stressors, particularly affecting low-middle-income countries with complex urban arrangements. We used remote sensing and census data to investigate potential connections between environmental factors and mental health disorders. Land cover variables were assessed using the European Space Agency (ESA) global WorldCover product at 10 m resolution together with the database of mental health diagnosed cases (n = 5769) from the Brazilian Unified Health System\'s Department of Informatics (DATASUS) from every health facility of the city of Porto Alegre. The association of mental health data with land cover was established with machine learning algorithms and polynomial regression models. The results suggest that higher trees cover at neighborhood level was associated with better mental health index. A lower mental health index was also found to be associated with an higher Human Development Index. Our results highlight the potential of greenness in the city environment to achieve substantially better mental health outcomes.

Selecting suitable Megacity Solid Waste Disposal (MSWD) sites is a challenging task in densely populated deltas of developing countries, exacerbated by limited public awareness about waste management. One of the major environmental concerns in Dhaka City, the world\'s densest megacity, is the presence of dumps close to surface water bodies resources. This study employed the Geographic Information System (GIS)-Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) framework to integrate geomorphological (slope and flow accumulation), geological (lithological and lineament), hydrogeological (depth to groundwater table and surface waterbody), socioeconomic (Land use land cover, distance to settlement, road, and airport), and climatological (wind direction) determinants, coupled by land-use and hydro-environmental analyses, to map optimal dumps (MSWDO) sites. The resulting preliminary (MSWDP) map revealed 15 potential landfill areas, covering approximately 5237 hectares (ha). Combining statistical analysis of restricted areas (settlements, water bodies, land use) with AHP-based ratings, the MSWDO map revealed two optimal locations (2285 ha). Additionally, the hydro-environmental analysis confirmed the unsuitability of northern sites due to shallow groundwater (< 5.43 m) and thin clay, leaving 11 options excluded. Sites 12 (Zone A, 2255 ha) and 15 (Zone B, 30 ha), with deeper groundwater tables and thicker clay layers, emerged as optimal choices for minimizing environmental risks and ensuring effective long-term waste disposal. This study successfully integrates remote sensing, geospatial data, and GIS-AHP modeling to facilitate the development of sustainable landfill strategies in similar South Asian delta megacities. Such an approach provides valuable insights for policymakers to implement cost-effective and sustainable waste management plans, potentially minimizing the environmental risks to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 6, 11, 13, and 15.

Urbanization has accelerated dramatically across the world over the past decades. Urban influence on surface temperatures is now being considered as a correction term in climatological datasets. Although prior research has investigated urban influences on precipitation for specific cities or selected thunderstorm cases, a comprehensive examination of urban precipitation anomalies on a global scale remains limited. This research is a global analysis of urban precipitation anomalies for over one thousand cities worldwide. We find that more than 60% of the global cities and their downwind regions are receiving more precipitation than the surrounding rural areas. Moreover, the magnitude of these urban wet islands has nearly doubled in the past 20 y. Urban precipitation anomalies exhibit variations across different continents and climates, with cities in Africa, for example, exhibiting the largest urban annual and extreme precipitation anomalies. Cities are more prone to substantial urban precipitation anomalies under warm and humid climates compared to cold and dry climates. Cities with larger populations, pronounced urban heat island effects, and higher aerosol loads also show noticeable precipitation enhancements. This research maps global urban rainfall hotspots, establishing a foundation for the consideration of urban rainfall corrections in climatology datasets. This advancement holds promise for projecting extreme precipitation and fostering the development of more resilient cities in the future.

Urban wetlands are gaining more attention and showing more important play in the sustainability. Surge findings are attached on the assessment of Wetland Ecosystem Service Value (WESV) in urban areas. While determining WESV in urban areas, it is still difficult to capture the nature of wetlands due to neglecting the impact of related impervious surfaces. It is necessary to improve the existing evaluating methods of WESV when seeking the truth. In order to narrow this issue, based on InVEST model, this study employed Equivalent Factors (EF) to determine WESV in urban areas with a case of Hengyang City, China. The main materials of this study included high-resolution images, DEM, precipitation, evapotranspiration, soil, vegetation, and statistical yearbook of the case. By comparing the uncorrected results with precipitation corrected and water yield corrected results of WESV, this study confirmed that: (1) the corrected results can reflect more real status than uncorrected; (2) in terms of EF, the water yield factor is more conducive to finding the truth than precipitation. Through this study, the water yield factor can effectively reduce the adverse effects of climate and improve the accuracy when determining WESV in urban areas.

BACKGROUND: Ambient air pollution, including particulate matter (such as PM10 and PM2·5) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2), has been linked to increases in mortality. Whether populations\' vulnerability to these pollutants has changed over time is unclear, and studies on this topic do not include multicountry analysis. We evaluated whether changes in exposure to air pollutants were associated with changes in mortality effect estimates over time.
METHODS: We extracted cause-specific mortality and air pollution data collected between 1995 and 2016 from the Multi-Country Multi-City (MCC) Collaborative Research Network database. We applied a two-stage approach to analyse the short-term effects of NO2, PM10, and PM2·5 on cause-specific mortality using city-specific time series regression analyses and multilevel random-effects meta-analysis. We assessed changes over time using a longitudinal meta-regression with time as a linear fixed term and explored potential sources of heterogeneity and two-pollutant models.
RESULTS: Over 21·6 million cardiovascular and 7·7 million respiratory deaths in 380 cities across 24 countries over the study period were included in the analysis. All three air pollutants showed decreasing concentrations over time. The pooled results suggested no significant temporal change in the effect estimates per unit exposure of PM10, PM2·5, or NO2 and mortality. However, the risk of cardiovascular mortality increased from 0·37% (95% CI -0·05 to 0·80) in 1998 to 0·85% (0·55 to 1·16) in 2012 with a 10 μg/m3 increase in PM2·5. Two-pollutant models generally showed similar results to single-pollutant models for PM fractions and indicated temporal differences for NO2.
CONCLUSIONS: Although air pollution levels decreased during the study period, the effect sizes per unit increase in air pollution concentration have not changed. This observation might be due to the composition, toxicity, and sources of air pollution, as well as other factors, such as socioeconomic determinants or changes in population distribution and susceptibility.
BACKGROUND: None.

As a new type of economic format, digital economy has three major characteristics: technical, innovative, energy-saving and environmentally friendly. Acting on various sectors of the national economy, it is beneficial for improving carbon emission efficiency and is of great significance for achieving China\'s two major goals of carbon peak and carbon neutrality. Firstly, theoretical analysis of the impact mechanism of digital economy on carbon emission efficiency, proposing research hypotheses on the direct effect, mediating effect, and spatial effect of digital economy on carbon emission efficiency. Secondly, based on panel data from 279 cities in China from 2011 to 2020, the econometric models are constructed to empirically analyze the direct, mediating, and spatial effects of digital economy on carbon emission efficiency. The results show that: 1) Digital economy can improve carbon emission efficiency; 2) The impact of digital economy on carbon emission efficiency has a \"U\"-shaped relationship, which is consistent with the \"Environmental Kuznets Curve\" hypothesis; 3) The impacts of digital economy on carbon emission efficiency exist in urban heterogeneity, specifically manifested as regional heterogeneity and urban scale heterogeneity; 4) Technological innovation is an important mediator for improving carbon emission efficiency in digital economy, and promoting technological innovation in digital economy can improve carbon emission efficiency; 5) Digital economy has spatial effect on carbon emission efficiency, which can improve the carbon emission efficiency of neighboring cities. Finally, based on the above results, suggestions are proposed from three aspects: promoting important industries and key areas for deep cultivation of carbon emission in digital economy, emphasizing regional balance in the development of digital economy, and strengthening regional cooperation in the development of digital economy, in order to continue to play a positive role in improving carbon emission efficiency through digital economy.

Equitable and effective planning of urban park green spaces (UPGSs) is an important way to promote green and healthy urban development and improve citizens\' quality of life. However, under the background of rapid urbanization, linear large cities, with their unique spatial forms and high-density population agglomerations, have brought special challenges for the planning and management of urban public green spaces. This study takes Lanzhou, a typical representative of high-density linear large cities in China, as a case study. Based on the improvement of the traditional Gaussian Two-Step Floating Catchment Area method (G2SFCA), combined with the Gini coefficient and the Lorentz curve, the social equity and spatial equity of UPGS supply-demand in the central urban area of Lanzhou were evaluated at the city and district scales. Meanwhile, the areas with shortage of UPGS supply-demand were accurately identified as the key areas for future optimization. The results show that: (1) There are significant differences in the equity of UPGS supply-demand in the linear large Lanzhou at the social and spatial levels, and most UPGS resources are enjoyed by a few people; (2) The spatial accessibility of UPGSs has an obvious \"string of beads\" distribution Characteristics, and the areas with high accessibility are mainly concentrated along rivers; (3) The equity of UPGS supply-demand exhibits a spatial gradient effect, which is characterized by a circle distribution. From the inside to the outside, it is as follows: good supply-dense population, good supply-sparse population, supply shortage-dense population, supply shortage-sparse population. Finally, based on the concept of \"progressive micro-regeneration\" and the Location Allocation model (LA), the optimal sites for new UPGSs were determined, maximizing the equity of UPGS supply-demand. This provides a practical reference for relevant management departments to optimize park layouts in the future.

Equal rights to rent and purchase affects the supply of compulsory education resources. How to promote the balanced compulsory education resources supply in the context of equal rights to rent and purchase is currently a hot issue amongst government and society. To achieve such balance, conducting research in the context of equal rights to rent and purchase becomes crucial. However, existing research has yet to provide sufficient explanations for the differentiated paths for realizing the balanced compulsory education resources supply in practice. This study uses 31 cities in China as case samples and jointly applies fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis and the \'technology-organization-environment\' (TOE) framework. The findings are summarized as follows. Firstly, the balanced compulsory education resources supply in the context of equal rights to rent and purchase is affected by six key technological, organizational, and environmental factors. Namely, data co-construction and sharing, technological infrastructure, attention allocation, government information disclosure, policy support for equal rights to rent and purchase, and level of urban economic development. Secondly, the linkage matching of technological, organizational and environmental conditions forms diversified configurations that drive the balanced compulsory education resources supply in the context of equal rights to rent and purchase. These configurations include the \'organization\' driving model, \'technology-environment\' driving model, \'technology-organization-environment\' driving model, and \'technology-organization\' driving model. Finally, eastern, central and western China are driven by different configuration paths. Amongst them, eastern China has relatively good basic conditions at the technological, organizational and environmental levels. The combination of different conditions can drive the balanced compulsory education resources supply in a \'different paths lead to the same destination\' manner. Although the development in central China is somewhat restricted, the radiation and impetus from eastern China, in combination with the different conditions in central China, can drive the balanced compulsory education resources supply. Western China shows no advantages at the technological, organizational and environmental levels. Faced with restrictions in organizational and environmental conditions, the government in western China should develop the necessary technological conditions to drive the balanced compulsory education resources supply.

The study of the perceived affective qualities (PAQs) in soundscape assessments have increased in recent years, with methods varying from in-situ to laboratory. Through technological advances, virtual reality (VR) has facilitated evaluations of multiple locations in the same experiment. In this paper, VR reproductions of different urban sites were presented in an online and laboratory environment testing three locations in Greater Manchester (\'Park\', \'Plaza\', and pedestrian \'Street\') in two population densities (empty and busy) using ISO/TS 12913-2 (2018) soundscape PAQs. The studied areas had audio and video recordings prepared for 360 video and binaural audio VR reproductions. The aims were to observe population density effects within locations (Wilcoxon test) and variations between locations (Mann-Whitney U test) within methods. Population density and comparisons among locations demonstrated a significant effect on most PAQs. Results also suggested that big cities can present homogenous sounds, composing a \'blended\' urban soundscape, independently of functionality. These findings can support urban design in a low-cost approach, where urban planners can test different scenarios and interventions.

The identification of key areas for ecological restoration in national land space is crucial for anchoring the bottom line of urban ecological security. As the core of ecological restoration in many resource-based cities, the zoning construction of abandoned mining sites has practical significance. We classified the abandoned mining sites in Handan City based on ecological functions and spatial importance, aiming to provide theoretical support for the orderly development of urban ecological restoration work. In terms of research framework, we proposed to overlay the importance of ecological protection at the functional level and the ecological security pattern at the spatial level, in order to obtain more accurate identification results of key ecological restoration areas at the urban scale. During the study process, we selected four indicators that fitting the regional characteristics of water conservation, soil conservation, biodiversity conservation, and soil erosion sensitivity for ecological protection importance evaluation, and selected the MSPA-Conefor-SPCA-MCR-circuit theory to construct the ecological security pattern. The results showed that 73 out of the remaining 204 abandoned mining sites belonged to the key ecological restoration areas, with a total area of 1500.9 hm2 in Handan City, which were mainly concentrated in the regions of Gushan, Fenghuangshan, and Fushan mountains. These regions had serious ecological and enviornmental problems, but with enormous potential value. Actively seeking site transformation on the basis of simple greening to extend the value chain and industrial chain of mining ecological restoration may become a more important goal in these regions.
国土空间生态修复关键区的识别是锚固城市生态安全底线的关键,矿业废弃地作为众多资源型城市生态修复的核心内容,分区建设具有重要现实意义。本研究基于生态功能与空间的重要性对邯郸市的矿业废弃地进行评级分区,以此为城市生态修复工作的有序开展提供一定的理论支撑。研究框架方面,提出在城市尺度下基于功能层面的生态保护重要性与空间层面的生态安全格局叠加,以得到更准确的生态修复关键区识别结果。研究过程中,选择契合地域特征的水源涵养、土壤保持、生物多样性维护和水土流失敏感性4项指标进行生态保护重要性评价,选择MSPA-Conefor-SPCA-MCR-电路理论进行生态安全格局构建。结果表明: 邯郸市剩余的204处矿业废弃地中,有73处属于生态修复关键区,总面积为1500.9 hm2,主要集中于鼓山、凤凰山及符山区域。这些区域虽存在严重的生态环境问题,但同样赋存着巨大的潜力价值。在简单覆绿的基础上积极寻求场地转型、延长矿山生态修复治理的价值链和产业链或许将成为这些区域的更重要目标。.