Lien-Chieh Lee

The mining industry is a cornerstone of global energy security and industrial supply chains, yet its resilience to systemic disruptions such as COVID-19 has been critically overlooked. This disruption provided a rare opportunity to trace supply-chain impacts. Using an environmentally extended multi-regional input-output (EEMRIO) model integrated with a Criteria Importance Through Intercriteria Correlation (CRITIC) weighted approach. We compare pandemic trajectories with counterfactual no-pandemic trajectories: the no-pandemic model (calibrated on 2004–2018) projects 2019–2025, while the pandemic model (calibrated through 2023) projects 2023–2025, with 2023 serving as the observed baseline and transition year. Our findings reveal a transient reduction in mining water and carbon footprints, juxtaposed with stark economic contractions: mining value fell by 40% in China, 37% in India, and 13% in the United States. The weighted component among the water-carbon-value (WVC) analysis further uncovers a tripolar spatial pattern, categorizing countries into financial hubs with high value, such as Switzerland, carbon-locked exporters like Brunei, and water-stressed regions, including Cambodia. Despite absorbing substantial embodied environmental burdens, China maintained its position as the global value hub. These insights underscore the urgency of policies that enhance structural efficiency, decarbonize the power sector, and foster supply chain diversification to decouple economic value from environmental pressures while mitigating spatial inequalities.

Rapid urbanization and climate change have intensified environmental pressures and social inequalities, making the integration of urban resilience and sustainable development a critical global challenge, with Nature-based Solutions (NbS) emerging as a promising pathway; however, the knowledge structure, collaboration patterns, and evolutionary trends of NbS research remain fragmented and insufficiently understood. This study conducts a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of 1261 publications from the Web of Science Core Collection (2005–2025), employing tools including VOSviewer 1.6.20, CiteSpace 6.4.R1, and Bibliometrix 4.1.3 to map publication trends, collaboration networks, knowledge bases, and thematic evolution. The results reveal a rapid expansion of NbS research since 2013, characterized by strong interdisciplinarity and a multicentric yet uneven geographical distribution dominated by China, the United States, and Europe. Four major research clusters are identified, encompassing policy governance, environmental benefits, ecosystem services, and social equity, reflecting a shift from ecological performance to integrated socio-ecological frameworks. Additionally, thematic evolution indicates growing emphasis on governance mechanisms, public health, and environmental justice. Overall, NbS research is transitioning toward a multi-scale, multi-objective, and governance-oriented paradigm. These findings highlight the need for strengthened international collaboration, standardized evaluation frameworks, and inclusive policy design to enhance the effectiveness and global applicability of NbS in advancing urban sustainable development.

The year 2020 marked the eve of the explosive growth in China’s BEV market, which may lead to substantial carbon emission implications. This study quantifies the full life-cycle carbon emissions of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) across China’s 31 provinces using a multi-regional input-output-based life-cycle assessment (MRIO-based LCA) model, covering four phases: manufacturing, driving, battery replacement, and scrapping. Moreover, the coupling coordination degree (CCD) model was employed to evaluate the coordination degree between provincial BEV deployment and a green electric system. Results show that the total carbon emissions amount to 48.95 million tons, with manufacturing contributing 58.4% and driving for 33.4%. Hebei (5.72 million tons) and Shandong (4.16 million tons) account for the largest shares, driven by embodied emissions from heavy industry and coal-intensive power systems. Interprovincial embodied carbon flows reveal a dominant north-to-south transfer pattern. Furthermore, coupling coordination between BEV deployment and a green electric system is generally medium (0.5 < CCD ≤ 0.7), with Guangdong (CCD = 0.73) standing out as an exemplary case, demonstrating an effective equilibrium between BEV industry expansion and the integration of renewable energy. These findings highlight that in provinces with rapidly growing BEV industries, such as Guangdong, policies promoting low-carbon supply chains and accelerating green electricity infrastructure development are crucial to reducing emissions.

Population growth has significantly increased energy and resource demands, driving research toward cost-effective technologies that repurpose waste into alternative energy forms such as biohydrogen. This review aims to comprehensively evaluate biohydrogen production via anaerobic digestion, addressing gaps in previous studies focusing on a single sustainable development goal or limited environmental benefits. The methodology used the Scopus database with specific keywords, the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses protocol to screen relevant articles, and bibliometric analysis to delineate research directions from 2002 to 2024. Findings indicate that research on biohydrogen production via anaerobic digestion has grown exponentially over the past two decades, with increasing emphasis on advanced techniques, innovative reactor configurations, and diverse microbial consortia. Emerging trends, including the integration of artificial intelligence for process optimization and comprehensive life cycle assessments, suggest promising avenues for large-scale implementation. Anaerobic digestion-based biohydrogen production supports several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including the ones related to clean energy (SDG7), SDG 13 (climate action), and SDG 12 (waste management), among others. Recent advancements are synthesized to provide a clear roadmap for future research toward sustainable energy solutions.

Excessive chemical substances in agricultural drainage water have serious adverse effects on the ecological environment of the watershed into which they are discharged. Therefore, it has attracted widespread attention from scholars worldwide. In this paper, 282 scientific articles related to agricultural drainage water treatment are selected from the Web of Science Core Collection database, and CiteSpace was used to visualize and analyze the knowledge map of this field. The most productive authors, institutions, and countries in agricultural drainage water research are graphically presented in this paper. Developing countries are becoming the core force in this realm of inquiry. In addition, this paper explains the changes in research topics in this field over time and reveals current research hotspots, including “desalination”, “denitrification”, and “phosphorus removal”. Future research endeavors in using bioreactors and agricultural drainage water ditches for treating agricultural drainage water are implied to become a research focus in this field. This paper also emphasizes that future environmental protection research should increase case studies in developing countries and develop corresponding solutions based on the actual situation of agriculture in rural areas of developing countries.

The distribution of atmospheric CO₂ is not homogenous, primarily due to variations in the CO₂ budgets of regional terrestrial ecosystems. To formulate a comprehensive strategy to combat the increasing global CO₂ levels and associated warming, it is crucial to consider both the distribution of atmospheric CO₂ and the CO₂ budgets of ecosystems. This study focused on analyzing the relationship between regional atmospheric CO₂ and CO₂ budgets in China from 2010 to 2017. Initially, a robust estimation model of net ecosystem CO₂ exchange was developed to calculate CO₂ budgets using collected emission data. Subsequently, Pearson correlation, redundancy analysis, and geographically weighted regression techniques were employed to examine the link between atmospheric CO₂ levels, CO₂ budgets, and other meteorological factors at various spatial and temporal scales. The findings from the redundancy analysis and geographically weighted regression indicated that the atmospheric CO₂ content of each province could not be solely determined by the regional CO₂ budgets. However, a significant and positive correlation between atmospheric CO₂ levels and CO₂ budgets was observed in non-coastal provinces for a period of six months (R² ranging from 0.46 to 0.83). Consequently, it is essential to promote a balance between CO₂ emissions and the CO₂ uptake capacity of regional ecosystems. This balance would minimize positive CO₂ budgets and effectively mitigate the increase in atmospheric CO₂ levels.