Even in the late stages of the COVID-19, the physical and psychological trauma caused by the epidemic continues to affect people, particularly university students, whose physical and psychological health is vulnerable to environmental influences. The purpose of this article is to investigate the relationship between learning adaptability and “state” anxiety among university students enrolled during the COVID-19(2020-2022), as well as the role of self-management in mediating this process. The findings reveal a negative association between college students' academic adjustment and their state anxiety, a process that also includes a mediation role for self-management, with subjects in this research being college students enrolled during COVID-19. This study offers a theoretical foundation for investigating the factors influencing anxiety from an operationalized viewpoint, as well as for further effective regulation of university students' mental health and anxiety reduction.
One of the most important factors for raising living standards is the drivers supporting water conservation and water management. Individual’s attitude and emotional factors with social cognitive behavior will play an essential role. This empirical study utilizing mixed methods was carried out in Malaysia with the Y generation. The focus group consisted of 52 participants (18 men and 34 women). As for the quantitative study, 607 respondents from the Generation Y population were used with the convenience sampling method. The finding revealed that the outcome expectancy of Generation Y significantly improves water conservation with appropriate water management. Environmental factors, personal factors, and perceived self-efficacy all predicted the result expectancy, which is confirmed by identifications of reciprocal determinism.
Land use or land cover (LU/LC) mapping serves as a kind of basic information for land resource study. Detecting and analyzing the quantitative changes along the earth’s surface has become necessary and advantageous because it can result in proper planning, which would ultimately result in improvement in infrastructure development, economic and industrial growth. The LU/LC pattern in Madurai City, Tamil Nadu, has undergone a significant change over the past two decades due to accelerated urbanization. In this study, LU/LC change dynamics were investigated by the combined use of satellite remote sensing and geographical information system. To understand the LU/LC change in Madurai City, different land use categories and their spatial as well as temporal variability have been studied over a period of seven years (1999-2006), by analyzing Landsat images for the years 1999 and 2006 respectively with the help of ArcGIS 9.3 and ERDAS Imagine 9.1 software. This results show that geospatial technology is able to effectively capture the spatio-temporal trend of the landscape patterns associated with urbanization in this region.
The design of effective flood risk mitigation strategies and their subsequent implementation is crucial for sustainable development in mountain areas. The assessment of the dynamic evolution of flood risk is the pillar of any subsequent planning process that is targeted at a reduction of the expected adverse consequences of the hazard impact. This study focuses on riverbed cities, aiming to analyze flood occurrences and their influencing factors. Through an extensive literature review, five key criteria commonly associated with flood events were identified: slope height, distance from rivers, topographic index, and runoff height. Utilizing the network analysis process within Super Decision software, these factors were weighted, and a final flood risk map was generated using the simple weighted sum method. 75% of the data was used for training, and 25% of it was used for testing. Additionally, vegetation changes were assessed using Landsat imagery from 2000 and 2022 and the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). The focus of this research is Qirokarzin city as a case study of riverbed cities, situated in Fars province, with Qir city serving as its central hub. Key rivers in Qirokarzin city include the Qara Aghaj River, traversing the plain from north to south; the primary Mubarak Abad River, originating from the east; and the Dutulghaz River, which enters the eastern part of the plain from the southwest of Qir, contributing to plain nourishment during flood events. The innovation of this paper is that along with the objective to produce a reliable delineation of hazard zones, a functional distinction between the loading and the response system (LS and RS, respectively) is made. Results indicate the topographic index as the most influential criterion, delineating Qirokarzin city into five flood risk zones: very low, low, moderate, high, and very high. Notably, a substantial portion of Qirokarzin city (1849.8 square kilometers, 8.54% of the area) falls within high- to very-high flood risk zones. Weighting analysis reveals that the topographic humidity index and runoff height are the most influential criteria, with weights of 0.27 and 0.229, respectively. Conversely, the height criterion carries the least weight at 0.122. Notably, 46.7% of the study area exhibits high flood intensity, potentially attributed to variations in elevation and runoff height. Flood potential findings show that the middle class covers 32.3%, indicating moderate flood risk due to changes in elevation and runoff height. The low-level risk is observed sporadically from the east to the west of the study area, comprising 12.4%. Analysis of vegetation changes revealed a significant decline in forest and pasture cover despite agricultural and horticultural development, exacerbating flood susceptibility.
The paper at hand analyses the principal-agent relationship, where comparative perspective between principals’ (municipalities) and agents’ (public utility providers) in the field of water and wastewater management is scrutinized. The goal of the paper is twofold: firstly, to present empirical results validating principal-agent relationships that emerged due to the reorganization process of public enterprises; secondly, to highlight the similarities and differences between the perspectives of principals and agents regarding motives, advantages and disadvantages, and price-setting in relation to the reorganization process. The empirical research is based on the primary data collected through two self-prepared and structured online questionnaires—one for municipalities, and the other for public utility providers. The results reveal similarities between public enterprises and municipalities in motivating factors for full municipal ownership. However, differences are seen among the advantages of the reorganization process. Price-setting by public utilities is recognized as a motivating mechanism for agents.
Over the last few decades, demographic growth combined with poorly controlled urbanization has confronted African cities with a variety of environmental protection challenges. As part of a gradual awareness-raising process, African countries have ratified conventions and adopted a series of laws to protect the environment. Since independence (1960), Gabon has adopted legal instruments to provide a better framework for environmental protection. Despite the existence of well-developed legislation, the Libreville conurbation faces difficulties in waste management. This situation contributes to the degradation of the coastal zone. This study aims to analyse stakeholders’ perceptions of environmental protection regulations in solid waste management practices along the coastline of the Libreville metropolitan area in Gabon. The methodology includes documentary research, field observations, and surveys of 300 study area participants. The results show that the degradation of the coastline is due to a lack of awareness and compliance with the laws governing environmental protection and waste management. As a result, waste disposal practices such as dumping in nature, waterways, illegal dumps, and gutters are commonplace among the population. To achieve sustainable coastal zone management, it is essential to apply regulatory texts and involve stakeholders in improving planning and the quality of the coastal environment.
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