The article deals with the problem of spatial differentiation of road transport pollution due to the planning structure changes in the new capital of Kazakhstan. The purpose of the work is to study territorial differences in from vehicles Nur-Sultan from vehicles and to identify the role of embodied planning measures among the main factors of its differentiation. The research methodology included the analysis of 1) the city functions and planning structure transformation as well as the buildings and road network density and concentration; 2) traffic speed and intensity, emissions and their distribution areas for each street.

The analysis showed that since 1997, when Nur-Sultan received the capital status, it has grown 3 times in the area, 3.5 times in population, and 6 times in the level of motorization. However, the volume of traffic emissions in the city increased only 2 times, largely due to the development of the planning structure and configuration of the road network. The development of a second center in the new part of the city along with the decrease in the barrier function of the river and transport transit because of the faster construction of transport infrastructure led to an increase in the density of the road network by more than 2 times while reducing the density of emissions in the city center by 2.25 times. For the rest of the territory, despite different growth rates in the road network density, the density of emissions steadily decreases from the center to the periphery. However, several locations with a high level of pollution are still present in the middle part, while on the outskirts of the city there are blocks of estate-type houses with low-quality roads, which hinder the development of public transport.

Cities are centres of economic growth with fascinating dynamics, including persistent urbanisation that encroaches adjacent arable lands to build urban physical features and sustain services offered by urban ecosystems. Even though industrial revolution, economic dynamics, and environmental changes affect spatial feasibility for housing, complex urban growth is always followed by the development of environmentally friendly cities. However, with such quality having multiple facets, it is necessary to assess and map liveable areas from a more comprehensive and objective perspective. This study aimed to assess, map and identify the biophysical quality of an urban environment using a straightforward technique that allows rapid assessment for early detection of changes in the quality. It proposed a multi-index approach termed the urban biophysical environmental quality (UBEQ) based on spectral characteristic of remote sensing data for residential areas calculated using various data derived from remote sensing. Statistical analyses were performed to test data reliability and normality. Further, many indices were analysed, then employed as indicators in UBEQ modelling and tested with sensitivity and factor analysis to obtain the best remote sensing index in the study area. Based on PCA Results, it was found that the built-up land index and vegetation index mainly contributed to the UBEQ index. The generated model had 86.5% accuracy. Also, the study area, Semarang City, had varying UBEQ index values, from high to low levels.

The history of development of Kolkata as a megacity in India dates back to 300 years. The scenario changed when the administrative headquarter of the British East India Company was established in erstwhile Calcutta, located at the bank of the River Hugli in the lower Gangetic plain. Since its inception, Kolkata has undergone rapid formal and functional change. Both national and international migration has led to the demographic explosion, urban industrial development and an increase in economic opportunities which caused environmental degradation. Until 1793, the urban dynamics of Kolkata followed a linear pattern along the left bank of the Hugli River. A similar trend continued along the right bank from 1793 to 1947 and extended up to its periphery post-independence. In this paper, an attempt was made to explore the influence of river ghats on the urban environment along the selected stretch of the River Hugli. Human activities like garbage disposal (0.089), sewage disposal (0.088) and idol immersion (0.084) have a negative impact on the river water. Secondly, this paper attempts to study the vertical expansion of Kolkata. It has been observed that the average height of buildings in the CBD area is 84.6 meters while along the peri-urban area it is only 10.61 meters proving the distance decay effect (R² = 0.405 and R² = 0.314). Besides, the mean values of DQ (5.179mg/l), BQD (8.5mg/l) and CQD (34.5mg/l) in the river water reflect the degrading water quality for the aquatic environment. Geospatial assessment techniques were used to understand the research problems and combat the environmental challenges. Complex functional development and decaying urban quality of life along the Hugli River has led to critical environmental transformation.

The Guamá River basin, in the northeastern state of Pará, eastern Amazon, Brazil, encompasses approximately 1,200,000 hectares. It presents great economic and social importance and is under significantly changes in land use and land cover. The objective of this work was to analyze and characterize the landscape structure of this basin through landscape ecology indexes (density, size, metric variability, shape, core area, proximity indexes, and patch area index). Land use and land cover maps were developed using images from the RapidEye system through supervised digital classification. The vegetation and landscape structure were quantified in patches, classes, and land cover. The forest patches were associated with partial conservation of some areas where production sectors had not yet directly affected, or those from natural regeneration of abandoned areas, mainly pastures. The class vegetated area was the second class most representative of the Guamá River basin covered about 37% considering the total area. The basin landscape presented more than 34,000 vegetated area patches It showing that this class are very fragmented by the presence of a large number of small patches, with this the basin landscape is compromised regarding its ecological integrity, since more than half of its forest patches are in edge environments. The indexes enabled a good joint analysis of the sub-basins of the Guamá River basin, resulting in a more detailed overview of the forest fragmentation process.

Lahore, a metropolis and 2^nd largest city of Pakistan, has been experiencing rapid urban expansion over the past five decades. The socio-economic development and growth of the urban population have caused the rapid increase of urban expansion. The increase in the built-up area of Lahore has seen remarkable growth during the past five decades. This study is aimed at detecting the Spatio-temporal changes in land use land cover and evaluating the urban expansion of Lahore since 1973. The conversion of land to other uses is primarily because of growth in urban population, whereas the increase in economic activities is the central reason for the land-use changes. In this study, temporal Landsat imageries were integrated with demographic data in the GIS environment to quantify the spatial and temporal dynamics of land use land cover (LULC) changes and urban expansion of Lahore city. The supervised image classification of maximum likelihood algorithm was applied on Landsat MSS (1973 and 1980), TM (1990), ETM+ (2000), TM (2010), and OLI/TIRs (2020) images, whereas a postclassification comparison technique was employed to detect changes over time. The spatial and temporal analysis revealed that during the past five decades, the built-up area of Lahore city has expanded by ~ 532 km². It was found from the analysis that in Lahore city the urban expansion was primarily at the cost of loss of fertile agricultural land, vegetation, and other cultivable land use. The analysis further revealed that the structure and growth pattern of Lahore has mainly followed road network and linear expansion. The results indicate that this accretive urban expansion is attributed to socio-economic, demography, conversion of farmland, rural-urban migration, proximity to transportation routes, and commercial factors. This study envisions for decision-makers and urban planners to devise effective spatial urban planning strategies and check the growth trend of Lahore city.

This research examines the impact of the tourism industry on spatial inequality in the Dead Sea region in terms of income, employment and changes in urban forms. The research assumes that this inequality results from the Dead Sea Development Zone (DSDZ) creation and focuses on the local level of urban analysis with the case study of a small Jordanian village Sweimeh, Quantitative data is used in this study for exploring these changes, uncovering persistent and obvious patterns of land use and exhibiting perspectives for the landscape, while satellite images offer extensive advantages over verified maps. The qualitative analysis combines field observations, a structured questionnaire survey with 270 randomly selected households and semi-structured interviews with 30 purposively selected participants. The results of the research showed that the DSDZ creates spatial inequality between the hotel touristic district and the village due to the high level of place-based development differences associated with urban characteristics, such as infrastructure and services provision. The results revealed that there has been a notable increase in population and area of Sweimeh as well as the locals' income. The population doubled from 2054 in 1994 to 4448 in 2019, the area has increased from 0.15 km² to 4.40 km², and the share of jobs in the tourism sector and businesses in the village jumped from 10% to 50% in the same period. This study is important since urbanization and spatial management programs received little attention in the DSDZ development agendas. At the academic level, the findings of this research help to establish an assessment tool for testing the socio-economic impact of tourism development on disadvantaged local communities

The present study was aimed to determine the potential cultivated lands for rice crop production in Vietnam. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TQPSIS) were employed in order to analyze the structure of an ideal solution in agriculture that focuses mainly on environmental, economic, and social sustainability. A final ranking of alternative development solutions was also accomplished. Three major factors were taken into consideration during the process, including the economics, social concerns, and the environment, in order to develop a sustainable plan for rice and other grain crops in the future. The obtained results demonstrate that the area under investigation in Quang Tri province, which encompasses 192.49 km² of land area, was extremely conducive to growing rice crops, with the majority of the arable lands suitable for cultivating rice varieties concentrated in Trieu Long District (63.14 km²) and Hai Lang District (56.87 km²). The main findings of the present work indicated that, it can link decision makers with the influencing variables of rice crop growing utilizing a hybrid method that can be successfully used based on GIS technique. To expand production, chemical soil characteristics and agricultural development strategies should be investigated further, particularly in the studied areas with greater success potential.

Currently, Beijing is facing increasing serious air quality problems. Atmospheric pollutants in Beijing are mainly composed of particulate matter, which is a key factor leading to adverse effects on human health. This paper uses hourly data from 36 environmental monitoring stations in Beijing from 2015 to 2020 to obtain the temporal and spatial distribution of the mass concentration of particulate matter with a diameter smaller than 2.5 μm (PM_2.5). The 36 stations established by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and the Beijing Environmental Protection Monitoring Center and obtain continuous real-time monitoring of particulate matter. And the 36 stations are divided into 13 main urban environmental assessment points, 11 suburban assessment points, 1 control point, 6 district assessment points, and 5 traffic pollution monitoring points. The annual average concentration of PM_2.5 in Beijing was 60 μg/m³ with a negative trend of approximately 14% year-1. In urban areas the annual average concentration of PM_2.5 was 59 μg/m³, in suburbs 56 μg/m³, in traffic areas 63 μg/m³, and in district areas 62 μg/m³. From 2015 to 2020, in urban areas PM_2.5 decreased by 14% year-1, in suburbs by 15% year -1, in traffic areas by 15% year-1, and in district areas by 12% year-1. The quarterly average concentrations of PM_2.5 in winter andspring are higher than those in summer and autumn (64 μg/m³, 59 μg/m³, 45 μg/m³, 55 μg/m³, respectively). The influenceof meteorological factors on the daily average value of PM2.5 in each season was analysed. The daily average PM_2.5 in spring, summer, autumn and winter is significantly negatively correlated with daily average wind speed, sunshine hours, and air pressure, and significantly positively correlated with daily average rainfall and relative humidity. Except for autumn, the daily average PM_2.5 is positively correlated with temperature. Although Beijing’s PM_2.5 has been declining since the adoption of the‘Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan’, it is still far from the first level of the new ‘Ambient Air Quality Standard’(GB309S-2012) formulated by China in 2012.

In order to analyze the problem of microplastics pollution a comprehensive environmental survey was conducted along the entire Volga river in summer of 2020. The analysis of 34 water samples allowed us to determine the average concentration of microplastic (MP) in the surface water layer of the Volga river which accounted for 0.90 items/m3 (0.21 mg/m³). MP particles were found in all samples taken. The concentrations ranged from 0.16 to 4.10 items/m³ (from 0.04 mg/m3 to 1.29 mg/m³). The maximum MP concentrations were recorded in large cities downstream of the sewage treatment plants. For Tver, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan and Volgograd they reached 3.77, 1.91,4.10 and 1.34 items/m³ respectively. The key role of large settlements as sources of MP in the Volga water was revealed. The minimum MP concentrations were recorded upstream of the large cities showing relatively stable levels of 0.25 items/m³ (0.05 mg/m³). The lowest MP content (0.16 items/m3) was revealed in the downstream area of the Cheboksary reservoir near Cheboksary. The results of weighing MP particles showed that their average concentration in the Volga water is 0.21 mg/m³. In each of the investigated samples particles of three determined fractions - fragments, fibers and films - were found, however, their ratio was not constant. On average, the proportion of fragments and films in the Volga water was 41% and 37% respectively and share of fibers accounted for 22%.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), launched by China in 2013 to increase economic and transport connectivity along the Eurasian continent and beyond, has posed unprecedented environmental and social risks, many of which are transboundary in nature. International legal tools contained in Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) can play an important role in mitigating such transboundary risks across space and time, as well as reduce the negative impacts of large infrastructure projects, such as are being developed under the auspices of the BRI. However, the adoption of MEA policy tools has been very uneven across the continent. Three conventions in particular, the 1991 Espoo Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment, the 1998 Aarhus Convention, and the 1992 Helsinki Water Convention (the UNECE MEAs) - have the least amount of ratifications by BRI countries. In this paper we discuss these three conventions and demonstrate their relevance in addressing the transboundary risks of large infrastructure projects which require complex coordination and long-term planning.

Extended ratification of these UNECE MEAs by nations along the BRI corridors should significantly assist in positively changing geographies by minimizing BRI environmental risks and threats on a transboundary and national dimension, but simultaneously (i) create a more unified approach towards sustainability across the BRI, (ii) raise involvement (and likely subsequent) support within communities for BRI projects, (iii) help to reduce related economic risks throughout Eurasia.

Beaches are key territories for tourist development but at risk of impacts of climate change—specifically with the consequent intensification of coastal erosion. This study examines the effects of coastal erosion on the distribution of lodging facilities and the value of daily rates practiced on the beaches of Tabuba and Cumbuco on the northeast coast of Brazil. The methodology comprises collecting information on the means of accommodation (distribution and daily rate), quantifying coastline variation and measuring the field to validate data. A total of 13.9 km of coastline were analyzed; erosion tendency was observed in 26.8% of the coast (9.0% erosion, 14.4% intense erosion, and 3.4% severe erosion). With the highest erosion rates, Tabuba's Beach has a low density in accommodation distribution and daily rates practiced in tourism. Cumbuco's Beach, conversely, has a lower risk of erosion, and the means of accommodation are concentrated. Coastal erosion has affected tourism development in Caucaia, influencing the choice of tourism accommodation entrepreneurs. the results indicate that there is a clear concentration of tourist accommodations in areas without notorious problems with coastal erosion, influencing in the distribution of tourist facilities and their daily rates. So, there is a direct connection does exist between local tourism system income and the beaches with problems with coastal erosion.