Bibliometric analysis of global environmental assessment research in a 20-year period

Based on the samples of 113,468 publications on environmental assessment (EA) from the past 20 years, we used a bibliometric analysis to study the literature in terms of trends of growth, subject categories and journals, international collaboration, geographic distribution of publications, and scientific research issues. By applying thresholds to network centralities, a core group of countries can be distinguished as part of the international collaboration network. A frequently used keywords analysis found that the priority in assessment would gradually change from project environmental impact assessment (EIA) to strategic environmental assessment (SEA). Decision-theoretic approaches (i.e., environmental indicator selection, life cycle assessment, etc.), along with new technologies and methods (i.e., the geographic information system and modeling) have been widely applied in the EA research field over the past 20 years. Hot spots such as “biodiversity” and “climate change” have been emphasized in current EA research, a trend that will likely continue in the future. The h-index has been used to evaluate the research quality among countries all over the world, while the improvement of developing countries' EA systems is becoming a popular research topic. Our study reveals patterns in scientific outputs and academic collaborations and serves as an alternative and innovative way of revealing global research trends in the EA research field.     

Carrying capacity for SDGs: A review of connotation evolution and practice

The integration of carrying capacity and sustainable development (sustainability) has prevailed since the end of the 20th century, but the connotation evolution and practice of carrying capacity for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have not been fully reviewed. Scientific measurement analysis and visualization are helpful to reflect the global picture of the connotation evolution and the practice in the field of carrying capacity for SDGs. This work retrieved the literature in the core collection database of Web of Science with topic words “carrying capacity and sustainable development” or “carrying capacity and sustainability” from 1985 to 2020. A set of 897 records were obtained as the data source. First, the evolution trend and mutation point detection, the theme mining and clustering, the citation chronology chart were visualized using the bibliometric analysis. Then, the focus of carrying capacity for SDGs and the main way to improve were summarized from the economic, environmental and social dimensions by researchers' intervention. This work examined the connotation and practice of carrying capacity for SDGs as thoroughly as possible, we attempted to supplement more meaning understanding, nuances, and critical thinking, and the current challenges and future prospects were summarized. It is expected that it will inspire new opportunities for academic research and practical applications, as well as enable policy managers to pay full attention to the potentially important value of carrying capacity in promoting the realization of SDGs.     

Carbon footprint: current methods of estimation

Increasing greenhouse gaseous concentration in the atmosphere is perturbing the environment to cause grievous global warming and associated consequences. Following the rule that only measurable is manageable, mensuration of greenhouse gas intensiveness of different products, bodies, and processes is going on worldwide, expressed as their carbon footprints. The methodologies for carbon footprint calculations are still evolving and it is emerging as an important tool for greenhouse gas management. The concept of carbon footprinting has permeated and is being commercialized in all the areas of life and economy, but there is little coherence in definitions and calculations of carbon footprints among the studies. There are disagreements in the selection of gases, and the order of emissions to be covered in footprint calculations. Standards of greenhouse gas accounting are the common resources used in footprint calculations, although there is no mandatory provision of footprint verification. Carbon footprinting is intended to be a tool to guide the relevant emission cuts and verifications, its standardization at international level are therefore necessary. Present review describes the prevailing carbon footprinting methods and raises the related issues.     

基于WoS文献计量分析PM2.5研究现状

运用文献计量学的研究方法,以Web of Science(WoS)为数据源,利用Excel软件对1990—2015年发表的相关PM_(2.5)研究的文献进行数据统计与分析,从文献发表年代、主要发文国家/地区、研究机构、期刊分布、热点文献等方面采用定量、定性的方法揭示了目前世界PM_(2.5)的研究进展。结果表明,近10年关于PM_(2.5)研究发文量增长较快,PM_(2.5)研究全球关注度较高,美国无论发文量、总被引频次和H指数都远超过其他国家/地区,体现了美国在PM_(2.5)研究领域的主导地位;PM_(2.5)相关领域的研究机构主要集中在美国和中国(未包含港、澳、台地区数据);文献多发表在相关大气化学与物理学、环境、健康、气溶胶等领域的刊物上;当前研究热点由PM_(2.5)所引发全球关注的生态环境问题转入对人体健康的影响上,且国际合作研究成为发展趋势。中国自2006年以来PM_(2.5)的研究文献增速显著,发文量和累计被引频次位居世界第二,仅低于美国。     

Exploration of sustainable development by applying green economy indicators

Following the global trend of sustainable development, development of green economy is the best way of slowing the negative ecological and environmental impact. This research establishes the Taiwan's green economic indicators based on the ecological footprint and energy analysis. The results are as follows: Taiwan's ecological footprint in 2008 intensity index was at 4.364; ecological overshoot index was at 3.364, showing that Taiwan's ecological system is in overload state. Moreover, this study utilizes energy analysis model to study the sustainable development of Taiwan. Findings showed that total energy use in 2008 was 3.14 × 10(23)?sej (solar energy joule, sej), energy of renewable resources was 1.30 × 10(22)?sej, energy of nonrenewable resources was 2.26 × 10(23)?sej, energy of products from renewable resources was 1.30 × 10(22)sej, energy of currency flow was 8.02 × 10(22)?sej and energy of wastes flow was 6.55 × 10(22)?sej. Taiwan's energy per capita and the utilization rate of energy is lower while the environmental loading rate is significantly higher comparing to some other countries. The foregoing findings indicate that Taiwan currently belongs to an economic development pattern based on high resource consumption. The economic development is mainly established on the exploitation and utilization of nonrenewable resources. Therefore, Taiwan should change the development pattern, regulate the industrial structure, promote the utilization rate of resources, develop green pollution-free products, and enhance the sustainable development of ecological economic system.     

Assessing the urban carbon footprint: An overview

All cities present environmental sustainability issues, above all regarding greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and specifically carbon dioxide (CO₂), that directly affect climate change. Consequently, it is very important to quantify and report their Carbon Footprint (CF) for implementing national and international policies/strategies aimed at mitigating and adapting these concerns. The Urban Carbon Footprint (UCF), indeed, has been recognized as the more valuable choice to inform, specifically, decision makers about city environmental sustainability. Several accounting systems and inventory methods have been taken into account to perform UCF, highlighting the complexity of the topic and generating very often confusion among users.In this context, the authors aim to summarize what has been done and what is going on with UCFs, trying to classify them according to some principal dimensions. Thus, they divide UFCs in two main categories namely: “spatial” or “direct”, with a limited amount of data requested, and “economic” or “life cycle based”, more or less data inclusive according to the accounting systems considered. Furthermore, they observe that there is not a “global agreed-upon protocol” yet, neither is there a specific model shared among researchers, even if some steps have been made towards this direction (Relative Carbon Footprint - RCF, Publicly Available Specification – PAS 2070 and Global Protocol for Community scale - GPC). Consequently, it is necessary to complete and standardize, in the short term, the accounting and reporting frameworks, in order to compare different UCFs for adopting shared climate strategies and actions at global level.     

“Emission game”: some applications of the theory of games to the problem of CO2 emission

If there are no doubts that we must reduce the total emission of carbon dioxide, then the problem of how much different countries should be allowed to contribute to this amount remains a serious one. We suggest this problem to be considered as a non-antagonistic game (in Germeier's sense). A game of this kind is called an “emission game”. Suppose that there are n independent actors (countries or regions), each of them releasing a certain amount of CO₂ per year (in carbon units) into the atmosphere, and that the emission would be reduced by each actor. Each actor has his own aim: to minimise the loss in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) caused by the reduction of emissions. On the other hand, taking into account that it is impossible to estimate more or less precisely the impact of the climate change on GDP for each country today, a common strategy will be to reduce the climate change. Since one of the main leading factors in global warming is the greenhouse effect, then the common aim will be to reduce the sum of emissions. This is a typical conflict situation. How to resolve it? We can weigh the “egoistic” and “altruistic” criteria for each actor introducing the so-called “coefficients of egoism”. This coefficient is very large, if the actor uses a very egoistic strategy, and conversely, if the actor is a “super-altruist”, then the corresponding coefficient is very small. Using these coefficients we get the general solution of the game in a form of some Pareto's equilibrium. The solution is stable and efficient.     

基于CiteSpace的温室气体监测发展动态可视化分析

采用文献计量方法，利用CiteSpace软件对Web of Science核心合集中2004—2020年以"Greenhouse Gases Monitoring"为主题词检索到的2 514篇文献进行可视化分析，从时间分布、国际合作、研究机构合作、研究领域、共被引分析和关键词分析等方面，揭示该领域的发展动态、研究实力分布、热点前沿等。结果表明：2004—2020年温室气体监测研究领域的发文数量总体呈现上升趋势，在全球应对气候变化的重大事件时间节点发文数量增幅较大；该领域发文量较多的国家和机构皆以发达国家为主，发展中国家中中国居首位，国家、机构合作关系紧密；温室气体监测研究涉及的学科领域较广，环境科学与生态学、环境科学、工程为排名前3位的学科领域，2010年后研究逐步拓展到建筑学、影像学、计算机科学、经济学等领域；该领域的研究知识基础主要聚焦温室气体浓度监测、来源去向、影响因素及变化趋势分析，温室气体监测技术方法研究及应用，以及森林、农业土壤碳汇研究等方面；通过不同时段关键词分析发现CO₂、CH₄和N₂O一直是温室气体监测研究的重点对象，关注视角逐渐转向多因素、多领域、多技术、多方法、多策略研究。基于分析结果和中国实际，提出今后一段时期中国温室气体监测领域的研究重点和工作方向。     

Baseline effects on carbon footprints of biofuels: The case of wood

As biofuel usage has boomed over the past decade, so has research and regulatory interest in its carbon accounting. This paper examines one aspect of that carbon accounting: the baseline, i.e. the reference case against which other conditions or changes can be compared. A literature search and analysis identified four baseline types: no baseline; reference point; marginal fossil fuel; and biomass opportunity cost. The fourth one, biomass opportunity cost, is defined in more detail, because this is not done elsewhere in the literature. The four baselines are then applied to the carbon footprint of a wood-fired power plant.The footprint of the resulting wood-fired electricity varies dramatically, according to the type of baseline. Baseline type is also found to be the footprint's most significant sensitivity. Other significant sensitivities are: efficiency of the power plant; the growth (or re-growth) rate of the forest that supplies the wood; and the residue fraction of the wood. Length of the policy horizon is also an important factor in determining the footprint.The paper concludes that because of their significance and variability, baseline choices should be made very explicit in biofuel carbon footprints.     

A study of assessment indicators for environmental sustainable development of science parks in Taiwan

This study adopted the ecological footprint calculation structure to calculate the ecological footprints of the three major science parks in Taiwan from 2008 to 2010. The result shows that the ecological footprints of the Hsinchu Science Park, the Central Taiwan Science Park, and the Southern Taiwan Science Park were about 3.964, 2.970, and 4.165 ha per capita. The ecological footprint (EF) of the Central Taiwan Science Park was the lowest, meaning that the influence of the daily operations in the Central Taiwan Science Park on the environment was rather low. Secondly, the population density was relatively high, and the EF was not the highest of the Hsinchu Science Park, meaning that, while consuming ecological resources, the environmental management done was effective. In addition, the population density in Southern Taiwan Science Park is 82.8 units, lower than that of Hsinchu Science Park, but its ecological footprint per capita is 0.201 units, higher than Hsinchu, implying its indicator management has space for improvement. According to the analysis result above, in the science parks, the percentages of high-energy-consuming industries were rather high. It was necessary to encourage development of green industries with low energy consumption and low pollution through industry transformation.     

Approaches to standardization of atmospheric pollution undergoing long-range and transboundary transport

The authors consider some possible ways of regulating three types of atmospheric emission of pollutants:

1. emission of substances causing pollution of the natural environment on the global scale (global pollutants);
2. emission of substances causing pollution on a regional scale, most often including territories of several countries (international pollutants);
3. emission of substances causing negative effects in a relatively limited region, for example within border area of two adjoining countries.

Substances (gaseous, as a rule) of a long life-time in the atmosphere that can contaminate natural media on a global scale irrespective of the place of emission refer to the first class of pollutants that are subject to emission regulation at an international level and to quota establishement for individual countries. They are carbon dioxide, freon, krypton-85. Various approaches to determining permissible emission and to quota establishing are discussed in the paper. The second group includes substances of a limited, yet rather long, life-time whose emission intensity makes a notable contribution to environmental pollution of a large region including territories of several countries. Here it is needed to regulate internationally not the atmospheric emission as it is but pollutant transport over national boundaries (sulphur and nitrogen oxides, pesticides, heavy metals). The third group includes substances of relatively short time of life producing local effects. Emission regulation in such cases should be based upon bilateral agreements with due account of countries' mutual interests.     

An environmental impact assessment of fossil fuel subsidies in emerging and developing economies

The impact of fossil fuel subsidies on environmental degradation has not been adequately examined in the existing literature. However, environmental degradation is often suggested as one of the causes of climate change. This paper examines the factors driving environmental degradation, emphasising the role of fossil fuels, in 35 emerging and developing countries. The ecological footprint is used as a proxy for environmental degradation. Using Generalized Method of Moments (GMM), the results show that an increase in fossil fuel subsidies leads to an increase in ecological footprint. Specifically, a 10% increase in fossil fuel subsidies will increase the ecological footprint by between 0.3% and 1.5%. The results further suggest that variables such as population size, real GDP per capita, urbanisation and the non-dependent population also boost environmental degradation. It is also shown that primary energy supply per capita, industry share, resource rent and globalisation have a positive effect on environmental degradation. However, the global oil price and human capital development do not have a significant impact on environmental degradation. The implications of these empirical findings are analysed in the paper.     

Scientist–stakeholder collaboration in integrated assessment of climate change: lessons from a case study of Northwest Canada

Research on the climate change issue has generally focused on uncertainties in climate projections and calculation of mitigation costs. Most integrated assessment (IA) efforts have been directed at the mitigation component. The problem of climate change, however, is really about the potential effects on ecosystems, resources, and societies that depend on them. As illustrated by experiences from the Mackenzie Basin Impact Study, a case study from Northwest Canada, these effects will be unique to each region and country. Many of these will be indirect, including region specific thresholds, vulnerabilities and adaptations which may not be included in sectoral analyses. Science can define some of the “What if” aspects of climate change, but the regional “So what” and “What should be done” questions are largely unanswered and subject to intense debate in various political fora. IA needs to recognize the multiobjective and multistakeholder aspects of vulnerabilities, risks, and potential responses to climate change. IA could provide a more holistic analysis of the regional impacts dimension of climate change by including both modeling and non‐modeling approaches, and incorporating institutional and stakeholder issues that do not readily lend themselves to economic analyses.     

Decoupling and decomposition analysis of residential building carbon emissions from residential income: Evidence from the provincial level in China

Decoupling residential building carbon emissions from residential income has great significance for carbon mitigation and even global climate change. However, the nature of the decoupling relationship between them is still unclear. This study adopts the Tapio decoupling model to explore the decoupling relationship among residential building carbon emissions (TC), per capita carbon emissions (PC), residential carbon intensity (FC) and per capita income (PCI) across 30 Chinese provinces from 2000 to 2015. Then, the Logarithmic Mean Divisa Index (LMDI) model is used to decompose the decoupling of residential building carbon intensity and PCI at the provincial level to determine the main factors determining this relationship. Results show that the main decoupling trend between FC and PCI in 30 provinces transformed from weak decoupling state to strong decoupling state during the whole period, while there is still extensive room for TC and PC to decouple with PCI. PCI has the major inhibiting effect on the decoupling between FC and PCI, while residential energy intensity (EI) has the primarily promoting effect on the decoupling. These findings provide valuable references for international policymakers in formulating precisely targeted energy-saving and carbon-reducing policies to coordinate the relationship between income and carbon emissions, and the results also can be applied to other economies and, to a greater extent, other pollutants.     

Impacts of software and its engineering on the carbon footprint of ICT

The energy consumption of information and communication technology (ICT) is still increasing. Even though several solutions regarding the hardware side of Green IT exist, the software contribution to Green IT is not well investigated. The carbon footprint is one way to rate the environmental impacts of ICT. In order to get an impression of the induced CO₂ emissions of software, we will present a calculation method for the carbon footprint of a software product over its life cycle. We also offer an approach on how to integrate some aspects of carbon footprint calculation into software development processes and discuss impacts and tools regarding this calculation method. We thus show the relevance of energy measurements and the attention to impacts on the carbon footprint by software within Green Software Engineering.     

The carbon footprint of a knowledge organization and emission scenarios for a post-COVID-19 world

The looming climate crisis requires an immediate response, in which organizations, as major contributors, should play a central role. However, these organizations need appropriate tools to measure and mitigate their climate impacts. One commonly applied method is carbon footprint analysis. Carbon footprint analyses have been conducted for various types of organizations, but knowledge organizations, such as universities and research institutes, have received far less attention, because their carbon footprint is often less visible and can be easily underestimated. This study is based on the carbon footprint analysis of one multinational knowledge organization. This analysis then helped identify the major sources of climate impacts in other such knowledge organizations. These are mainly indirect emissions (Scope 3) and to a large extent (79%) travel-related emissions. Based on these findings, three scenarios for a post-COVID-19 world were developed and analyzed. The results from the first two scenarios showed that despite a reduction in business travel and employees working from home, Scope 3 and travel-related emissions would remain the largest contributor. Only in the unlikely case of the third, non-recovery scenario did the share of travel-related emissions drop, turning heating into the largest contributor. In addition to measuring the carbon footprint, the study discusses potential mitigation strategies knowledge organizations could apply to reduce their carbon footprint. The focus is on how to avoid and reduce emissions, but new forms of carbon offsetting are also addressed. Based on the findings, a mitigation policy framework and recommendations for further research are proposed.     

Public participation in Strategic Environmental Assessment: A practitioners' perspective

Public participation is considered a distinguished feature of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), and the SEA literature has traditionally identified several benefits attached to it, from more open and transparent decision-making to greater acceptance of plans/programmes' output by the affected population. However, relatively little empirical evidence has been collected so far on the extent and outcomes of public engagement as it is being carried out in current SEA practice. In this article, we present the results of a study on this theme based on a direct survey of 47 SEA practitioners and scholars from different countries. Respondents were asked to report their experience about a number of items including: the frequency of SEA process featuring deep public participation; its overall influence on plan/programmme-making; the identification of the main factors impeding it; the correlation of public involvement with environmental outcomes; and the increase of costs. Results indicate that public engagement in current SEA practice is still relatively limited and with limited influence on decision-making. The main impeding factors seem to be: lack of political willingness by proponents; insufficient information on the SEA process by the public; and weakness of the legal frames. However, respondents also report that when effective public engagement takes place, benefits do arise and identify a positive correlation between the degree of public involvement and the environmental performance of plans and programmes. Overall, findings suggest that public involvement has indeed the potential to positively influence both SEA and decision-making, although this should be supported from the policy side by stronger legal frames, higher requirements and improved technical guidance.     

What matters in the distributions of clean development mechanism projects? A panel data approach

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) suggests that both developed and developing countries can take actions to mitigate global climate change. Carbon reduction and sustainable development are the goals of the CDM. However, the uneven distribution of the CDM projects in developing countries may jeopardize the fulfilment of these goals. This paper uses panel data from 107 host countries to explore the influencing factors of the CDM using a negative binomial regression. The club convergence model is used to divide the host countries into different sub-groups according to their numbers of operating CDM projects in a year. The results show that affluence, the sophisticated international trading experience, and the growing demands for energy of the host countries have a positive impact on the successful registrations of the CDM projects, while the cost of carbon emission abatement hinders the registration. But for countries with fewer CDM projects, the industrial level and national carbon emission have no significant impacts on the distribution of CDM projects. In the end, target policy implications were made based on the results.     

Accounting asymmetries in the long-run nexus between globalization and environmental sustainability in the United States: An aggregated and disaggregated investigation

In recent years, the number of studies on the relationship between globalization and ecological footprint is steadily increasing, yet the literature lacks any formal consensus. Previous studies unveil beneficial as well as harmful effects of globalization on the environment. Furthermore, most of the scholars rely on linear methods to investigate this relationship, which can produce biased outcomes when non-linearities exist in data. Unquestionably, the United States played a leading role in increasing global connectivity; however, the present US administration has demonstrated not only a penchant for isolationism by keeping certain critical resources, technologies, and manufacturing capacities in the US but also the tendency to ignore environmental concerns both domestically and globally. On this backdrop, this study uses asymmetric ARDL, and asymmetric causality methods to investigate the asymmetric relationship between globalization and the ecological footprint of the US. Additionally, the disaggregated asymmetric impacts of social, economic, and political globalization on footprint are also ascertained. The results indicate non-linear cointegration among variables. The long-run estimations reveal that a 1% positive change in overall globalization and in economic globalization increases ecological footprint by 1.32 and 0.72%, respectively, while a similar 1% negative change alleviates footprint by 6.75 and 1.05%, respectively. The outcomes elucidate much more dominant effects associated with negative changes in total and economic globalization. In contrast, positive changes in social globalization improve the environment by mitigating ecological footprint. Interestingly, positive shocks to political globalization stimulate footprint, indicating the validity of the environmental governance failure hypothesis. Further, Granger causality from positive changes in globalization to the footprint is found. Lastly, this study is concluded by comprehensive policy implications, including policy regarding FDI, trade, and enhancing social globalization, among others.     

Implementing strategic environmental assessment in countries of the global South – An analysis within the Peruvian context

Recently, the SEA research community has started to pay attention to countries of the Global South. Yet, the international literature has rarely explored Latin American Environmental Assessment (EA) systems in contrast to EA systems in countries of the Global North. This article aims at analysing the Peruvian Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) system. Research was conducted in 2015 as part of the project ‘ProAmbiente’ initiated by the German-Peruvian development co-operation (APCI and GIZ) with the objective to analyse and strengthen the SEA practice in Peru. A combination of methods was used for meta- and micro-level analyses, characterising both the intended SEA system and practical performance. Ultimately, the analysis of the SEA implementation was based on a review of state-of-the-art international literature and led to the formulation of a set of recommendations. Recommendations have been clustered in nine priority areas and were assigned an implementation horizon from mid- to long-term.