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In cities with high density, heat is often trapped between buildings which increases the frequency and intensity of heat events. Researchers have focused on developing strategies to mitigate the negative impacts of heat in cities. Adopting green infrastructure and cooling pavements are some of the many ways to promote thermal comfort against heat. The purpose of this study is to improve microclimate conditions and thermal comfort levels in high-density living conditions in Seoul, South Korea.

This study compares six design alternatives of an apartment complex with different paving and planting systems. It also examines the thermal outcome of the alternatives under normal and extreme heat conditions to suggest strategies to secure acceptable thermal comfort levels for the inhabitants. Each alternative is analyzed using ENVI-met, a software program that simulates microclimate conditions and thermal comfort features based on relationships among buildings, vegetation and pavements.

The results indicate that grass paving was more effective than stone paving in lowering air temperature and improving thermal comfort at the near-surface level. Coniferous trees were found to be more effective than broadleaf trees in reducing temperature. Thermal comfort levels were most improved when coniferous trees were planted in paired settings.

Landscape elements show promise for the improvement of thermal conditions because it is much easier to redesign landscape elements, such as paving or planting, than to change fixed urban elements like buildings and roads. The results identified the potential of landscape design for improving microclimate and thermal comfort in urban residential complexes.

The results contribute to the literature by examining the effect of tree species and layout on thermal comfort levels, which has been rarely investigated in previous studies.

Increased emphasis on environment, increased faith in private sector forests rather than government‐owned plantations, and improved techniques for tree growing have led to changes in reforestation policies, particularly in timber‐importing countries. Farm and community forestry has become more important, and often involves mixed broadleaved species and selective logging rather than clearfell. Private profitability is often low, but social returns may be considerably greater, warranting government support. While governments have experimented with a variety of instruments to encourage reforestation, policies have not necessarily addressed the main impediments. Measures to increase the share of resource rent gained by tree growers relative to other stakeholders in the timber production pipeline could accelerate plantings.

Throughout the world, at one period or another in its history, it has been the practice to cultivate tree species and agricultural crops in intimate combination in most of the countries. The history of cultivating trees and crops in home gardens, social tree planting, protecting and managing forests, appreciating wildlife, and sustaining the beauties of nature in Sri Lanka go back to more than about 25 centuries. In chronicles, there are some references on social tree planting practices, and home gardens planted with flowering and fruit-bearing trees in Sri Lanka. Because of the traditions, influencing factors of the existing environment, and nature of agroforestry, the numerous examples of agroforestry practices are found in all agro climatic and ecological zones of Sri Lanka. Today, the traditional knowledge of agroforestry is being developed and expanded with the objective of improving living standards, especially the rural communities in Sri Lanka.

This study aimed to estimate the economic benefits of PM2.5 emission abatement by Red Pine, Pinus Koraiensis and Quercus, using a metering model analyzing the amount of PM2.5 absorption in Korea.

To estimate the economic effects of PM2.5 adsorptions by trees, the frequency of hospital visits resulting from respiratory and circulatory diseases was estimated using a Probit model based on the data from National Health and Nutrition Survey.

The results show that Quercus and Pinus Koraiensis absorb and eliminate the largest amount of PM2.5. Reducing 1 ton of PM2.5 emission through the planting of trees leads to lower incidences of respiratory and circulatory diseases equivalent to the amount of 95 million won. When the trees planted are 2-year-old Red Pine, Pinus Koraiensis and Quercus, the resulting economic benefits of the PM2.5 abatement would amount to 481 million won, 173 million won and 1,027 million won, respectively. If the trees are 80 years old, the economic benefits are estimated to be 73 billion won for Red Pine, 103 billion won for Pinus Koraiensis and 38 billion won for Quercus.

One limitation of this study is that the weight of PM2.5 adsorbed by each leaf area entirely depended on the experimental results from a prior study and the values are likely to be different from those actually absorbed in natural surroundings. In addition, because of the lack of data from a domestic survey on the surface of leaf area or the reload flow rate of PM2.5, this study referred to data from foreign research. Unfortunately, this specific data may not reflect climatic and terrain characteristics specific to the target country. We used the annual wind speed to calculate the reload flow rate and elimination volume; however, the figures could be more accurate with hourly or daily climate variations. When estimating the health benefits of changes in PM2.5 emissions on respiratory and circulatory diseases, more segmented access to patients' hospital visits and hospital admissions are desirable. Finally, the study focused on the three major tree species of Korea, however, a more detailed study of PM2.5 reduction by various tree types is needed in the future.

This paper quantitatively assessed the amount of PM2.5 adsorption by each of the three tree species. Then, the economic benefits were calculated in terms of how much money would be saved on hospital visits thanks to the reduced PM2.5 levels and lower incidences of respiratory and circulatory system diseases. The net contribution of this study was to prove the trees' function of reducing PM2.5 as it relates to human health. We focused on the most common trees in Korea and compared them to provide new information on the species.

Change of climate is attributed to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere observed over comparable periods. The purpose of this paper is to explore smallholder farmers' perceptions of climate change and compare it with meteorological data, as well as to identify perceived adaptation barriers and examine the factors that influence the choice of adaptation options in eastern Ethiopia.

In total, 384 sample households were chosen from four districts of the zone. A cross-sectional survey was used to conduct the study. Primary data was acquired through key informant interviews, focus group discussions and semistructured interviews, whereas meteorological data was collected from the National Meteorological Service Agency of Ethiopia. A Mann–Kendall statistical test was used to analyze temperature and rainfall trends over 33 years. A multivariate probit (MVP) model was used to identify the determinants of farmers' choice of climate change adaptation strategies.

The result indicated that temperature was significantly increased, whereas rainfall was significantly reduced over the time span of 33 years. This change in climate over time was consistently perceived by farmers. Smallholder farmers use improved varieties of crops, crop diversification, adjusting planting dates, soil and water conservation practices, reducing livestock holdings, planting trees and small-scale irrigation adaptation strategies. Moreover, this study indicated that sex of the household head, landholding size, livestock ownership, access to extension, access to credit, social capital, market distance, access to climate change-related training, nonfarm income, agroecological setting and poverty status of the households significantly influence farmers’ choice of adaptation strategies.

Further research is required to evaluate the economic impact of each adaptation options on the livelihood of smallholder farmers.

Institutional variables significantly influenced how farmers adapted to climate change, and all of these issues might potentially be addressed by improving institutional service delivery. To improve farm-level adaptation, local authorities are recommended to investigate the institutional service provision system while also taking demographic and agroecological factors in to account.

This study compared farmers' perceptions with temperature and rainfall trend analysis, which has been rarely addressed by other studies. This study adopts an MVP model and indicated the adaptation strategies that complement/substitute strategies each other. Furthermore, this study discovered that the choice of adaptation options differed between poor and nonpoor households, which has been overlooked in previous climate change adaptation research.

The purpose of this paper was to examine smallholder farmers’ perceptions of climate change risks, adaptation responses and the links between adaptation strategies and perceived/experienced climate change risks in South Gondar, Ethiopia.

This paper used a convergent mixed methods design, which enables us to concurrently collect quantitative and qualitative data. Survey data was collected from 352 households, stratified into Lay Gayint 138 (39%), Tach Gayint 117 (33%) and Simada district 97 (28%). A four-point Likert scale was used to produce a standardised risk perception index for 14 climate events. Moreover, using a one-way analysis of variance, statistical differences in selecting adaptation strategies between the three districts were measured. A post hoc analysis was also carried out to identify the source of the variation. The findings of this paper are supplemented by qualitative data gathered through focus group discussions and key informant interviews of households who were chosen at random.

The standardised climate change risk perception index suggests that persistent drought, delayed onset of rainfall, early termination of rainfall and food insecurity were the major potentially dangerous climate change risks perceived by households in the study area. In response to climate change risks, households used several adaptation strategies such as adjusting crop planting dates, crop diversification, terracing, tree planting, cultivating drought-tolerant crop varieties and off-farm activities. A Tukey’s post hoc test revealed a significant difference in off-farm activities, crop diversification and planting drought-tolerant crop types among the adaptation strategies in the study area between Lay Gayint and Simada districts (p < 0.05). This difference reconfirms that adaptation strategies are location-specific.

Although many studies are available on coping and adaptation strategies to climate change, this paper is one of the few studies focusing on the linkages between climate change risk perceptions and adaptation responses of households in the study area. The findings of this paper could be helpful for policymakers and development practitioners in designing locally specific, actual adaptation options that shape adaptation to recent and future climate change risks.

The purpose of this study is to consider how a local government authority may present a tree asset register of street trees for the decision-making of the authority's stakeholders.

Using the tenets of population density theory, urban form theory and social stratification theory, the approach of the study is to develop a tree asset register in a local government authority's setting that could be modelled using many different attributes to derive important information for decision-making purposes.

Tree asset registers represent a critical tool in managing street trees across local government authorities.

Although the efficacy of an asset tree register may be curtailed by lack of internal audit or yearly updates, the practical consequence of an asset tree register is that local administrators may use the register to gather summarised, organised and parsimonious measures of a wide range of environmental, historical, cultural, aesthetic and scientific values of street trees.

Tree asset registers affords ratepayers, developers, tree managers and valuers a technology to plan, coordinate and manage street trees to support ecosystem services.

Asset tree registers offer planners a means to bring about sustainable change management.

The originality of the study rests in introducing tree registers as a means to meet diverse strategies for street tree management by interested stakeholders.

One Acre Fund (1AF) is a nonprofit organization in rural western Kenya that helps farmers lift themselves out of poverty by providing a bundle of products and services that support farmers with quality inputs, training on farming techniques, access to credit, and assistance in achieving optimal prices. Since the organization's founding nearly a decade ago, it has grown to serve over 180,000 farm families annually as of July 2014. This high level of penetration into rural Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania makes 1AF a potential distribution channel for rolling out new products and technologies that could benefit farmers and their families. The organization prides itself on its innovative culture, and always strives to offer new products and methods to its farmers. In 2011 1AF realized that it needed to formalize its innovation process to ensure it was confident in new products before rolling them out across its entire farmer network. It therefore created a robust, multistep evaluation framework to assess new innovations on four criteria: impact, adoptability, simplicity, and operability.

After reading and analyzing the case, students will be able to:

• Articulate the importance of understanding the user's needs and perspective throughout the innovation process

• Identify key factors for a successful product launch into an existing channel

• Employ an assessment framework to analyze the viability of a potential innovation

• Design a test pilot for evaluating the launch of new innovations within an organization

Articulate the importance of understanding the user's needs and perspective throughout the innovation process

Identify key factors for a successful product launch into an existing channel

Employ an assessment framework to analyze the viability of a potential innovation

Design a test pilot for evaluating the launch of new innovations within an organization

This study aims to explore green hotel visitors’ afforestation intentions by extending the theory of planned behavior, including post-COVID-19 personal norms (PCPN) and post-COVID-19 environmental concerns (PCECs). Moreover, this study examines the mediating effect of PCECs from the post-COVID-19 perspective.

This study is based on existing literatures and collection of 384 usable responses using the convenience sampling technique. The partial least square structural equation modeling is used to analyze data using Smart PLS3.3.3.

The findings reveal that post-COVID-19 afforestation attitudes, subjective norms (SN), perceived behavioral control (PBC) and PCPN significantly influence post-COVID-19 afforestation intentions (PCAI) and PCECs. Further, PCEC partially mediates the between post-COVID-19 afforestation attitudes, SN, PBC and PCPN and PCAI.

The findings of this study may be useful to green hotel operators in formulating business strategies enhancing visitors’ positive perceptions toward green hotels and afforestation intentions coping with new normal environment and hospitality industry.

This research presents a distinguished case highlighting how the green hotel guests’ perceptions toward afforestation for mitigating carbon emissions are changing because of COVID-19 pandemic. This study provides crucial insights for green hotel practitioners by integrating post-COVID-19 afforestation attitudes, SN, PBC, PCPN and PCEC of green hotel visitors in examining PCAI.

The purpose of the paper is to show that land degradation and desertification are threatening the livelihood of more than a billion dryland inhabitants. The paper aims to present traditional and novel approaches for sustainable agricultural exploitation of the arid drylands in Southern Israel and similar climatic zones, and their potential for rehabilitating degraded drylands and increasing agricultural productivity.

The paper analyses the current agricultural activities on the Abu Rabia farm as well as developing experimental approaches and discusses the expected impact on ecological, economic and social sustainability.

The farm investigated consists of about 120 hectares of semi‐desert land 30 km east of Beer Sheva, divided about 50:50 between rocky hill country and plains with deep loess soil. The area receives an average 200 mm of rain per year. The land is used for raising livestock (about 120 head of sheep and goats), wheat cultivation on high quality soil, and agroforestry, mainly olive cultivation in terraces designed to collect runoff water of seasonal streams. These activities provide a basic income and cover a significant amount of the families' food requirements, but can not provide a full income for a family head in a developed country like Israel. Improving the quality of the grazing land by silvipasture, further investments into high value dryland tree crops and simultaneous production of wood for industry and energy can dramatically increase the farm's income, its resilience to drought and ecological sustainability.

This analysis demonstrates the potential of dryland agroforestry for sustainable development while solving a number of economic and social problems of poor dryland inhabitants, and it contributes to fighting desertification and global warming.

This case study demonstrates that sustainable dryland exploitation by agroforestry can establish significant agricultural production potentials on marginal lands often considered worthless. Because of the establishment of significant and permanent carbon sinks, carbon trading may be mobilized to cover the required investments creating a classical win‐win situation.