Environmental Footprints: Analyzing and Mitigating the Environmental Burden from Anthropogenic Activities

Introduction

With the progress of industrialization and urbanization, anthropogenic activities have led to considerable pressure on the Earth, hindering global sustainable development. Notably, in the past few decades, human activities have altered the Earth at an unsustainable rate and scale that are far from sustainable—with activities such as over-exploring natural resources, generating and discharging pollutants, and transforming the landscape. One effective approach for assessing the burden that human activities have on nature is to evaluate the “environmental footprint”. A “footprint” is a tool that enables the quantification of various types of burdens and impacts on global sustainability. Assessing humanity’s environmental footprints (e.g., land, water, energy, material, water, ecological, and other footprints) is essential to clarify the methods of environmental footprints as well as reveal the environmental burden that human activities contribute to our earth, and finally provide suggestions for environmental burden reduction. This CJPRE special issue aims to provide such a platform.

Topics of interest

This topic could cover recent research and advancements in the following areas:

1. Evaluation indicators, techniques, and standards for environmental footprint evaluation, including carbon footprint, water footprint, energy footprint, ecological footprint, etc.
2. Typical models and empirical analysis of environmental footprints of various sectors, including the agricultural sector, industrial sector, etc.
3. Driving factors of humanity’s environmental footprints
4. Nexus of various environmental footprints, including water–energy nexus, water-energy-carbon nexus, etc.
5. Co-benefits of mitigating environmental impacts, including the co-benefit of pollution reduction and carbon reduction
6. Strategies for mitigating environmental footprints
7. Interactive decision-making and management technology for environmental footprint reduction.

Manuscript submission instructions

All authors must follow the editorial guidelines provided in the Guide for Authors of the Chinese Journal of Population, Resources and Environment (CJPRE). Authors should submit their manuscripts online, please select VSI: Environmental Footprints upon submission.

Papers must be written in good English. Authors with limitations in the command of written English are recommended to have their papers edited by a 'Professional English Scientific Editor', before the first submission because poorly written pieces can compromise the decisions during the review process. Similarly, they should have their final document edited by a 'Professional English Scientific Editor' before they submit their final document for final review and publication. All submissions will be checked for similarity and those manuscripts showing too high levels of similarity will be rejected.

Tentative schedule

Deadline submission of full papers: December 31, 2024

Guest editorial team

Managing Guest Editor:

Dr. Wei Chen, School of Geography and Environment, Shandong Normal University, Jinan Shandong 250358, PR China. Email: weichen@sdnu.edu.cn

Guest Editors:

Dr. Yong Geng, School of International and Public Affairs, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200030, PR China. Email: ygeng@sjtu.edu.cn

Dr. Lu Sun, School of Human Settlements and Civil Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Shaanxi Province, 710049, PR China. Email: sun.lu@xjtu.edu.cn

Dr. Yi Dou, Institute for Future Initiatives, The University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan. Email: dou.yi@platinum.u-tokyo.ac.jp