Human Activity Intensity and Its Spatial-Temporal Evolution in China’s Border Areas

Uncovering the relationship between floating marine litter and human activities in watersheds

Rivers serve as the primary pathway for transporting floating marine litter (FML) from land to sea. However, the complex dynamics of transboundary rivers pose a significant obstacle when examining the impact of watershed-based human activities on FML distribution. This study conducts year-long monthly monitoring of FML using trawl and visual surveys in the coastal water of a peninsula dominated by indigenous rivers in south China. Overall, small pieces debris dominates FML in the nearshore waters of the peninsula, with meso-sized (0.5 cm-2.5 cm) FML accounting for 73.93 % of the total. The density of FML is more profoundly influenced by human activities within watersheds rather than its composition. Moreover, the association between human activity and FML density exhibits greater significant compared to variations based on geography and seasonality. This study provides a scientific basis for coastal protection and contributes for understanding of the mechanisms of marine litter transfer from land to sea.

Carbon neutrality along the way to participate in global value chains: the threshold effect of information globalization of BRICS countries

Using panel data from BRICS countries over the period 2000 to 2018, a multi-variate threshold model was built to investigate how global value chain (GVC) participation and information globalization affects CO2 emission. We further decompose the information globalization into two indicators, i.e., de facto measure and de jure measure. The main findings show that the estimated value of threshold is 4.02 and 1.81 for both de facto and de jur measures of information globalization. The findings suggest that information globalization rate above the threshold level negatively affects the carbon emissions. De facto and de jure measures show a strong single threshold effect when GVC participation is chosen as the major explanatory variable. Similarly, participation in GVCs has a large single threshold impact when information globalization is taken as the primary independent variable. Overall, the results show that the larger the information globalization for the countries under analysis, the modified impact of GVC participation on CO2 emission reduction is larger. The robustness test validates the stability and coherence of the study's findings. The opportunities that the information globalization along the approach to participate in GVCs presents for the accomplishment of carbon neutrality should be properly utilized by policymakers. There should be expansion the participation in GVCs with digital infrastructure and to enhance the assessment system for the use of technology spillover effects to increase environmental-friendly GVC ladder.