Given the eclectic and localized nature of environmental risks, planning for sustainability requires solutions that integrate local knowledge and systems while acknowledging the need for continuous re-evaluation. Social-ecological complexity, increasing climate volatility and uncertainty, and rapid technological innovation underscore the need for flexible and adaptive planning. Thus, rules should not be universally applied but should instead be place-based and adaptive. To demonstrate these key concepts, we present a case study of water planning in Texas, whose rapid growth and extreme weather make it a bellwether example. We review historic use and compare the 2002, 2007, 2012, 2017 and 2022 Texas State Water Plans to examine how planning outcomes evolve across time and space. Though imperfect, water planning in Texas is a concrete example of place-based and adaptive sustainability. Urban regions throughout the state exhibit a diversity of strategies that, through the repeated 5-year cycles, are ever responding to evolving trends and emerging technologies. Regional planning institutions play a crucial role, constituting an important soft infrastructure that links state capacity and processes with local agents. As opposed to “top-down” or “bottom-up”, we frame this governance as “middle-out” and discuss how such a structure might extend beyond the water sector. 

The central government of China has intensively guided regional integration and policy coordination towards the development of digital governance in the last ten years. The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay was one of the most important regions of China expected to accelerate regional development through policy coordination and establishment of digital infrastructures. This article adopted the method of content analysis to explore the policy transitions of digital governance in the Greater Bay including policy contents (in terms of policy objectives and instruments) and policy networks. Based on our empirical analysis, we found that top-down guidance from the central government did not necessarily generate regional coordination. Different governments of the same region could start policy coordination from shared policy objectives and policy instruments and establish innovative governance frameworks to achieve consensus. Therefore, regional coordination could be fulfilled.

This paper considers the problems surrounding the implementation of road infrastructure plans in a policy perspective. As the main pillar of regional connectivity, road networks provide the link across national markets, foster strong and sustainable economic growth, help meeting people’s basic needs, and promote trade and competiveness. It is argued that planning, implementing, and managing good transportation infrastructures poses a series of challenges that require competence, good governance, and the availability of funds. Such problems become more complex when road projects encompass different states and become transnational. The regional dimension of connectivity involves both opportunities and risks; a cooperative attitude by all parties is viewed as the best ingredient to achieve a positive balance. Since most countries cannot still rely on domestic resources, the paper stresses the role of virtuous policies in directing capital flows from abroad towards the infrastructural projects of Southeast Asia.

The hydroclimatological monitoring network in Haiti was inadequate before 2010 due to a lack of meteorological stations and inconsistent data recording. In the aftermath of the January 2010 earthquake, the monitoring network was reconstructed. In light of the prevailing circumstances and the mounting necessity for hydroclimatological data for water resource management at the national level, it is of paramount importance to leverage and optimize the limited available data to the greatest extent possible. The objective of this research is to develop regional equations that facilitate the transfer of climatic data from climatological stations to locations with limited or absent data. Physiographic and climatological characteristics are used to construct the hydrologic information transfer equations for sites with limited or no data. The validity of the regionalization techniques was assessed using cross-validation. The results enable estimation of hydrological events through the specific patterns of behavior of each region of the country, identified in cartography of homogeneous zones.

Financial shocks have an incredible socioeconomic effect on both developed and developing countries. Various recent studies demonstrated that bad public governance impacted public health across all nations. In fact, this study aims to use panel data for 21 countries from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region over the period 2000–2020 to scrutinize the effect of both governance and financial crises on public health. We use the generalized method of moments (GMM) approach to carry out the empirical analysis. The objective of using this method is to deal with the issue of endogeneity between exogen variables. Results outline that there is a significant positive association between public governance indicators and public health. Moreover, we found a strong negative association between financial shocks and public health. Thus, the direct negative impact of financial crisis on public health could be mitigated by the indirect positive impacts via institutions and good public governance. This study gives insights to policymakers to take appropriate measures to decrease the severity of the financial shocks and improve healthcare services.

Heat conduction theory stipulates that two thermo-physical properties of materials: the thermal conductivity “k” and the thermal diffusivity “α” influence the temperature evolution in regular and irregular bodies as a response to various cooling/heating conditions. The traditional statement involving the two thermo-physical properties is examined at length in the present study for the case of a semi-infinite region. The primary objective of the present study is to investigate the influence of the less known thermo-physical property called the thermal effusivity “e” on the incipient surface temperature rise in a semi-infinite body affected by uniform surface heat flux. The secondary objective of the study is to identify a key figure of merit named the dimensionless threshold time that separates the incipient temperature elevation in a semi-infinite region from the incipient temperature elevation in a large wall of finite thickness under the same uniform surface heat flux. The outcome of the methodical analysis suggests that the accurate estimate for the dimensionless threshold time τ_th in the semi-infinite region should be 0.10.