A topic of current interest in forestry science concerns the regeneration of degraded forests and areas. Within this topic, an important aspect refers to the time that different forests take to recover their original levels of diversity and other characteristics that are key to resume their functioning as ecosystems. The present work focuses on the premontane rainforests of the central Peruvian rainforest, in the Chanchamayo valley, Junín, between 1,000 and 1,500 masl. A total of 19 Gentry Transects of 2 × 500 m, including all woody plants ≥2.5 cm diameter at breast height were established in areas of mature forests, and forests of different ages after clear-cutting without burning. Five forest ages were considered, 5-10, 20, 30, 40 and ≥50 years. The alpha-diversity and composition of the tree flora under each of these conditions was compared and analyzed. It was observed that, from 40 years of age, Fisher’s alpha-diversity index becomes quite similar to that characterizing mature forests; from 30 years of age, the taxonomic composition by species reached a similarity of 69–73%, like those occurring in mature forests. The characteristic botanical families, genera and species at each of the ages were compared, specifying that as the age of the forest increases, there are fewer shared species with a high number of individuals. Early forests, up to 20 years of age, are characterized by the presence of Piperaceae; after 30 years of age, they are characterized by the Moraceae family.

Ride-hailing or private hire has taken the Singapore transport network by storm in the past few years. Singapore has had more than three revisions of its ride-hailing regulation in the six years since the arrival of the disruptive technology. Often quoted in the list of cities with commendable public transport policy, Singapore still manages to find a viable and significant position for ride-hailing. Cities from around the world are all searching for a model of regulation for ride-hailing that can be elevated as a benchmark. Singapore, to a large extent, has formulated a successful model based on current market parameters and, more importantly, an adaptive one that evolves constantly with the constantly disruptive technology. The experts and regulators of the Singapore transport sector were interviewed in depth, tapping into their opinions and technocratic commentaries on the city-state’s Point-to-Point, or P2P, sector regulation. The data were analyzed using the three-element model of social practice theory as an alternative to conventional behavioral studies, thereby eliminating bias on the commuters and rather shifting focus to the practice. Content analysis utilizing QDA is executed for categorization through fine-level inductive matrix coding to elaborate upon the policy derivatives of the Singapore model. The unique addition of the research to ride-hailing policy is the comprehension of the commonalities and patterns across industrial and technological disruption, practice and policy irrespective of sectoral variations, thanks to the utilization of social practice theory. The first-of-its-kind policy exercise in the sector can be repeated for any city, which is a direct testament to the simplicity and exhaustivity of the methodology, benefiting both operators and investors through equitable policy formulation.

Flood risk analysis is the instrument by which floodplain and stormwater utility managers create strategic adaptation plans to reduce the likelihood of flood damages in their communities, but there is a need to develop a screening tool to analyze watersheds and identify areas that should be targeted and prioritized for mitigation measures. The authors developed a screening tool that combines readily available data on topography, groundwater, surface water, tidal information for coastal communities, soils, land use, and precipitation data. Using the outputs of the screening tool for various design storms, a means to identify and prioritize improvements to be funded with scarce capital funds was developed, which combines the likelihood of flooding from the screening tool with a consequence of flooding assessment based on land use and parcel size. This framework appears to be viable across cities that may be inundated with water due to sea-level rise, rainfall, runoff upstream, and other natural events. The framework was applied to two communities using the 1-day 100-year storm event: one in southeast Broward County with an existing capital plan and one inland community with no capital plan.

Forests have ecological functions in water conservation, climate regulation, environmental purification, soil and water conservation, biodiversity protection and so on. Carrying out forest ecological quality assessment is of great significance to understand the global carbon cycle, energy cycle and climate change. Based on the introduction of the concept and research methods of forest ecological quality, this paper analyzes and summarizes the evaluation of forest ecological quality from three comprehensive indicators: forest biomass, forest productivity and forest structure. This paper focuses on the construction of evaluation index system, the acquisition of evaluation data and the estimation of key ecological parameters, discusses the main problems existing in the current forest ecological quality evaluation, and looks forward to its development prospects, including the unified standardization of evaluation indexes, high-quality data, the impact of forest living environment, the acquisition of forest level from multi-source remote sensing data, the application of vertical structural parameters and the interaction between forest ecological quality and ecological function.