35 °C warmer and 579 mm wetter, respectively, with 0.15 and 8.57% greater variance than the mainland. Consequently, negative impacts of climatic trends and variabilities on yield trends and variabilities were found to be higher in the coastal region. On average, 2.75 and 2.91% of the crop yields were lost, respectively, due to climatic trends and variabilities, which is equivalent to 2.4 million tons per year (Mt/yr). Excluding the effects of locations and crop types, temperature and precipitation can explain 12% (≡3.06 Mt./yr) of the crop production variance. Findings suggest that coastal crop production is more susceptible to climate change than the inland. Useful insights provided by this research would help policymakers to develop strategies to make future crop production more stable. Researchers and academicians can also benefit from the generated data and methodological approaches to analyse regional and global scale climatic roles in crop production.An increase in living standards and dietary changes have induced a rapid growth in the livestock sector worldwide, which has led to considerable environmental damages due inappropriate disposal of livestock manure. GSK2256098 Using primary data from a field survey of cattle farmers in China, this paper empirically examines the impact of policy cognition on livestock farmers’ investment in manure recycling facilities. The impact is tested through the multiple mediator model to accommodate two potential mediating mechanisms, which are the agricultural cooperative membership and land leasing. Three conclusions arise. First, policy cognition has a significant positive impact on both the diversification and amounts of farmers’ investment in manure recycling facilities. Second, membership in agricultural cooperatives and participation in land leasing are two important mediating mechanisms for policy cognition to affect farmers’ investment decisions on manure recycling. Finally, for the two mediating variables, leasing additional agricultural land promotes more investment in manure recycling facilities, but less in investment diversification, while cooperative membership has the opposite impact. This study contributes to three areas of literature on the factors affecting investment decisions, the mediating effects of policy cognition and the investment in non-production related assets. Regarding policy implications, we identify the importance of promoting policy awareness and agricultural cooperatives among livestock farmers, as well as developing land lease markets in agricultural regions in promoting investment in manure recycling facilities.Urbanization can lead to changes in urban morphology that alter the urban thermal environment and energy demand. Improving urban ventilation can alleviate the urban heat island effect and reduce urban energy demand. We categorized the ventilation conditions of 31 major cities in China into four levels based on the frontal area index and presented the natural ventilation effects for cities in five different climate zones. We found that the land surface temperature varies between 0.029 and 5.357 °C in areas under the same climate background. Improving ventilation can directly or indirectly contribute to reductions in urban energy consumption. The energy demand in well-ventilated areas can be reduced by up to 6.704%. The largest reduction in urban energy demand was achieved by improving ventilation within the temperate continental climate zone.Metaldehyde, a widely used molluscicide, is one of the most commonly detected pesticides in aquatic environments in the UK. In this study, metaldehyde concentrations and fluxes in stream water over a ten-year period (2008-2018) are reported for the River Colne catchment (Essex, southeast England), and the influence of hydrological conditions and application regimes are assessed. In general, peaks in metaldehyde concentration in river water occasionally exceeded 0.25 μg L-1, and concentrations did not typically exceed the European Union Drinking Water Directive (EU DWD) regulatory limit of 0.1 μg L-1. Metaldehyde concentration peaks displayed a seasonal pattern. Metaldehyde concentrations during periods when the molluscicide was not applied to agricultural land (January, July) and during the spring-summer application period (February to June) were generally low (0.01-0.03 μg L-1). Peaks in metaldehyde concentration mainly occurred during the autumn-winter application season (August to December), and were typicdehyde concentrations in stream water will continue to decrease following the withdrawal of metaldehyde for outdoor use in the UK from March 2022.While both bacteria and fungi are important for the degradation and humification of organic matter during composting, it is unclear to what extent their roles are associated with abiotic compost properties. This study evaluated changes in abiotic compost properties and the succession of bacterial and fungal communities during pig manure composting for 90 days. The compost rapidly reached thermophilic phase (>58 ℃), which lasted for 15 days. Both bacterial and fungal community compositions changed drastically during composting and while bacterial diversity increased, the fungal diversity decreased during the thermophilic phase of composting. Two taxa dominated both bacterial (Bacillales and Clostridiales) and fungal (Eurotiales and Glomerellales) communities and these showed alternating abundance fluctuations following different phases of composting. The abundance fluctuations of most dominant bacterial and fungal taxa could be further associated with decreases in the concentrations of fulvic acid, cellulose, hemicellulose and overall biodegradation potential in the compost. Moreover, bacterial predicted metabolic gene abundances dominated the first three phases of composting, while predicted fungal saprotrophic functional genes increased consistently, reaching highest abundances towards the end of composting. Finally, redundancy analysis (RDA) showed that changes in abiotic compost properties correlated with the bacterial community diversity and carbohydrate metabolism and fungal wood saprotrophic function. Together these results suggests that bacterial and fungal community succession was associated with temporal changes in abiotic compost properties, potentially explaining alternating taxa abundance patterns during pig manure composting.