Journal of Environmental and Public Health

The main objective of the paper is to assess the implications of the business expansion approach to economic development in Zimbabwe on the quality of the environment. In terms of the research methodology, the research adopted a mixed methodology and utilized a parallel semantic convergent research design. The study gathered data using questionnaires, interviews, and observations from the 600 randomly selected businesses from the agriculture, entrepreneurship, and small-scale mining sectors. Data were analyzed using STATA. The paper hypothesized that there is no significant relationship between entrepreneurship, mining, and agricultural activities under Zimbabwe’s expansion business approach and environmental protection. The findings have highlighted that Zimbabwe is dominated by illegal entrepreneurship, peri-urban agriculture, and artisanal mining activities. Such illegal activities negatively affect the quality of the environment in Zimbabwe. There is a lot of environmental degradation and land pollution associated with the expansion of nonformal and illegal business activities in Zimbabwe. However, the paper concluded that illegal agricultural, mining, and entrepreneurial activities which have been expanding since 2008 in Zimbabwe are affecting the quality of the environment. In terms of policy implications, it is necessary to put in place institutional instruments and enforcement mechanisms to protect the environment under the Zimbabwe expansion business approach.

Water quality of drinking water is a concern in Palestine due to possible pollution sources. There is a demand for investigating the quality of municipal water supply. This study aimed to assess the quality of domestic water in Jenin Governorate located in the north of the West Bank. The methodology of this research was based on field sampling and laboratory standard testing. The tested parameters included (1) physicochemical parameters of electrical conductivity, turbidity, total hardness, salinity, pH, and total alkalinity, (2) chemical contents including the contents of nitrate, nitrite, sulfate, chloride, sodium, potassium, aluminum, and fluoride, and (3) biological contents including total coliforms and fecal coliforms. The water quality parameters were compared with the acceptable limits set by local and international standards. The findings confirm that most of the values of the investigated parameters are within the acceptable standard limits. No pollution of heavy metals is detectable. On the other hand, there are limited pollution contents in terms of the total dissolved solid (TDS), total hardness, and calcium. Furthermore, the biological parameters indicate that there are low to very high risks in a fraction of the water quality samples in terms of total coliforms and fecal coliforms. This is believed to be due to the presence of septic tanks in the neighborhoods of the sampling locations. For these cases, biological disinfection treatments are recommended before human use with an essential need for the construction of urban sewer systems. Furthermore, water treatment for harness removal may be required.

An in-depth understanding of environmental regulation and its action mechanisms on the regional economy helps the regional government make correct and reasonable decisions on environmental and industrial policy. So far, relatively few scholars have analyzed the influence of different intensities of environmental regulation on the spatial evolution of regional economies. Drawing on the existing results, this paper carries out a mathematical analysis of the action mechanism of different intensities of environmental regulation on the regional economy. The action paths of environmental regulation on the regional economy were identified, and the basic assumptions were provided for the action mechanism. Furthermore, the authors discussed the energy conservation and emission reduction (ECER) cost and economic benefit under the effect of environmental regulation. Finally, the empirical results were obtained through the experiments. It is concluded that the ecological efficiencies of the regional economy in the study area demonstrated heterogeneous spatial correlations.

As a rock mass with shallow burial, high temperature, and large-scale development, the study of its mechanical and seepage characteristics plays an important role in the efficient development of geothermal energy. With the development of geothermal energy in China, a breakthrough has been made in the exploration of dry-hot rocks, and the realization of efficient development of dry-hot rocks has become the focus of attention. Systematic research on rock mechanics and seepage characteristics of dry-hot rocks has become a key research topic. Granite is the most typical dry-hot rock. In this paper, granite in the Qinghai area is selected as the research object, and experiments on physical characteristics, mechanical parameters, and seepage characteristics of granite are carried out to study the effects of different depths and temperatures on mechanical parameters and seepage characteristics of granite. The results show that the physical parameters of granite in Qinghai do not change obviously with the increase of depth, and granite has the characteristics of low water absorption and low porosity. At the same time, the parameters of water absorption and porosity at different depths are close, and the dispersion is small, so the rocks are very dense. The rocks have relatively high P-wave velocity and low S-wave velocity, and the elastic wave velocity changes little at different depths. With the increase of confining pressure, the strength of granite rock increases. Under different confining pressures, the rock shows brittle failure characteristics after the peak stress. According to Hoek–Brown and Mohr–Coulomb strength curves, the strength value is 173.52 MPa. After high temperature treatment, a complex fracture network is formed in the granite. With the increase of temperature, the permeability and porosity of the granite increase continuously, and 500°C is the temperature threshold. When the temperature is lower than 300°C and the stress is less than 30 MPa, the granite has negative Poisson’s ratio, and the permeability and effective stress of dry-hot rocks are piecewise linear functions. The research results provide theoretical guidance for fracturing of dry-hot rocks and exploitation of geothermal energy.

The sustainable development of the urban environmental landscape is a process that integrates resource utilization, ecological benefit, economy, and society and involves elements of culture, society, politics, economy, and individual residents. Citizen participation is increasingly important for the urban landscape design, and therefore, urban environmental landscape studies must be evaluated objectively by the public to ensure both sustainable development and social justice. In this study, the Tao Sichuan Creative Industry Park (the former “Universe Porcelain Factory”) in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province, China, was taken as example, and the implemented landscape reconstruction was evaluated. The analytical hierarchy process was used to collect both expert and public opinions regarding the cultural landscape; then, the weight coefficient of the value index layer of the industrial heritage park was obtained. A comparison of the two groups (experts and the public) showed that the experts do not exactly agree with the perspective of the public: experts prefer the artistic value far more than any other factors, while the public prefers the artistic value, social value, and economic value. Each group prefers different values of the landscape, suggesting that environmental justice should not be biased toward one of these perspectives. Finally, a design optimization principle is proposed according to the results of this study. This principle strengthens the sustainable development concept in the landscape reconstruction of industrial heritage parks, and suggestions are provided for optimizing the allocation of urban public landscape resources.

The continuous expansion of shipping trade has brought about increasingly serious marine pollution problems. In the context of emission reduction in the global shipping industry, this paper focuses on the operation optimization of container ships inside and outside the emission control area (ECA). From the dual perspectives of shipowners and the general public, models in the annual operating cycle are established to study the economic and environmental benefit differences between traditional fuels, i.e., heavy fuel oil (HFO) and low-sulfur fuel oil (LSFO), and alternative fuels, i.e., liquefied natural gas (LNG) and methanol. Sensitivity analysis was carried out for the proportion of ECA and ship speed. The results show that, in the current situation of high natural gas prices, the use of HFO after the installation of scrubbers is still the most cost-effective option in the short term, followed by the use of LSFO and methanol. LNG is no longer an attractive option, while LSFO and methanol are the best options for both cost and the environment. With the tightening of ECA regulations, methanol will become the optimal choice when the ECA ratio is higher than 47%. By reducing the speed of the ship, the pollutant emission can be effectively reduced, but it will also lead to an overall decrease in profits. Considering the future “zero carbon” emission targets, slow streaming is only suitable as a short-term response measure, while switching to green power energy is a choice that is more in line with the long-term development strategy.