GIS-Based Analysis of the Spatial Distribution and Influencing Factors of Traditional Villages in Hebei Province, China

Traditional villages are a valuable cultural asset that occupy an important position in Chinese traditional culture. This study focuses on 206 traditional villages in Hebei Province and aims to explore their spatial distribution characteristics and influencing factors using ArcGIS spatial analysis. The analysis shows that traditional villages in Hebei Province were distributed in clusters during different historical periods, and eventually formed three core clusters in Shijiazhuang, Zhangjiakou and Xingtai-Handan after different historical periods. Moreover, the overall distribution of traditional villages in Hebei Province is very uneven, with clear regional differences, and most of them are concentrated in the eastern foothills of the Taihang Mountains. To identify the factors influencing traditional villages, natural environmental factors, socio-economic factors, and historical and cultural factors are considered. The study finds that socio-economic and natural environmental factors alternate in the spatial distribution of traditional villages in Hebei Province. The influence of the interaction of these factors increases significantly, and socio-economic factors have a stronger influence on the spatial distribution. Specifically, the spatial distribution of traditional villages in Hebei Province is influenced by natural environmental factors, while socio-economic factors act as drivers of spatial distribution. Historical and cultural factors act as catalysts of spatial distribution, and policy directions are external forces of spatial distribution. Overall, this study provides valuable insights into the spatial distribution characteristics and influencing factors of traditional villages in Hebei Province, which can be used to develop effective strategies for rural revitalisation in China.

16th International Conference on the Modelling of Casting, Welding, and Advanced Solidification Processes

PrefaceThe 16th International Conference on the Modelling of Casting, Welding, and Advanced Solidification Processes (MCWASP XVI) was held from June 18 to 23, 2023, in Banff, Canada, at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Founded in 1933, the Centre in Treaty 7 Territory within Banff National Park—Canada's first National Park—is a learning organization built upon an extraordinary legacy of excellence in artistic and creative development. The "all-inclusive” nature of the conference and the remote setting meant that participants dined, attended oral and poster presentations, and participated in social activities as a group, fostering outstanding opportunities for networking.Given that the MCWASP community had not met in person since 2015 in Japan (the 2020 edition of MCWASP was virtual owing to COVID-19), the 2023 conference provided the opportunity to renew old friendships and make new ones as well as discuss the science of solidification and related processes—all within the backdrop of the beautiful Canadian Rocky Mountains.The technical program comprised more than 70 oral and poster presentations. In addition to content related to modelling of casting, welding, and advanced solidification processes, keynotes were invited to talk about related subjects (artificial intelligence/machine learning, and permeability modelling in shale rock) as well as the rich diversity of fossils, especially dinosaurs, found in Alberta.The oral technical program was organized with as a single session (i.e., no concurrent presentations). It featured all aspects of solidification modelling, including solidification process technologies (continuous and semi-continuous casting, shape casting, additive manufacturing, and welding), coupled multi-physics simulations, defect formation, fluid flow, micro- and macro-structure formation, numerical methods, and related experimentation, especially in-situ observation of solidification.The four-day technical program was spread over five days to give participants the opportunity to explore the stunning Canadian Rocky Mountains.In these proceedings, the papers are organized by major theme. The dominant topics are Additive Manufacturing and Welding and Microstructure Formation, followed by Continuous Casting – Shape Casting, Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow, Alloy Segregation, Defects, Imaging of Solidification, Thermomechanics, and Materials Properties. In these themes, the authors report advances in numerical modelling techniques, new scientific and process developments in solidification, and related in-situ experimentation.Although significant progress has been made over these past 16 MCWASP conferences covering 43 years, it is clear that the complexity of advanced solidification phenomena as related to conventional and emerging manufacturing technologies still attracts a great deal of scientific and industrial interest to support technological innovation.André PhillionBanff, Canada, June 2023MCWASP XVI 2023List of Peer Reviewers, Sponsors, MCWASP XVI Organizers, International Scientific Committee are available in this Pdf.

A Garden of Marvels: Tales of Wonder from Early Medieval China by Robert Ford Campany (review)

The category of zhiguai (accounts of the strange) texts is diverse, encompassing a wide variety of anecdotes, historical records, memoirs, letters, temple inscriptions, and biographies, among others, that recount encounters with sacred, ordinary, and apotropaic objects, shapeshifting animals, ghosts, demons, local gods, and numinous beings such as Daoist transcendents or the Buddha, Buddhist practitioners, deities and supernatural creatures;visits to otherworldly places such as the court of judgment in the afterlife, hidden villages of immortals or enlightened beings à la James Hilton's Shangri-la or the Tibetan mythical kingdom of Shambhala, or even heaven or hell;and unaccountable phenomena such as bizarre dreams, premonitions, and miraculous occurrences, including surviving entombment and the return from death (xxviii). Mordicai Gerstein's children's book Carolinda Clatter (2005), with its description of a giant's sleeping body becoming a mountain with forests, caves, and waterfalls, mirrors the cosmogonic myth of Pangu, whose body parts become the world in item 85 (58 and 59). The eerie feel of the scene in C. S. Lewis's The Magician's Nephew (1955), where Digory Kirke enters the Garden to pluck an apple from the Tree of Knowledge to protect Narnia, is highly reminiscent of item 47 (35), where uninvited intruders eat their fill of otherworldly fruit from a remote orchard but are admonished by an unseen voice in midair to drop the fruit they intended to take with them.

COVID-19 lockdown splits activity peaks of two mesopredators and potentially relaxes interspecific competition in rural habitat

COVID-19 lockdown has provided a unique example of a sudden and significant reduction of human presence in a rural area, especially in villages with high tourist pressure. We used camera-trapping to investigate the effect of reduction of human activity due to COVID-19 lockdown in a rural area on activity patterns of species considered urban exploiters and urban adapters. The activity patterns of both predators changed slightly and activity peaks shifted without significant differences in temporal niche overlap. The stone marten, an urban exploiter, had a bimodal activity pattern and shifted the main peak of its activity earlier during COVID-19 lockdown. It was quick to respond to the decrease in human presence in the first half of the night by increasing activity in that time. Meanwhile, the red fox, an urban adapter, showed larger variation in activity patterns and shifted summer and autumn-winter activity peaks to later at night or even early morning. These changes resulted in slight differences in the overlap of activity rhythms of both species. Stone marten and red fox have adapted their activity to avoid human encounter and are active mainly at night, responding by a small extent to reduction of human presence during COVID-19 lockdown, which occurs mainly during the day. However, COVID-19 lockdown and lower human mobility may partially reduce interspecific competition induced by anthropogenic activities in rural areas.

National Parks in Twitter: A German-speaking perspective

Mining data from social media platforms has become increasingly popular to explore aspects of human behaviour, including attitudes towards the natural environment or visiting protected areas. Most studies and analytical algorithms refer to digital content published in English. However, it is also useful to conduct research in other languages to complement existing international studies. Our main aim was to explore Twitter content on national parks, published between 2006 and July 2021, in German. The study also presents a differentiated analysis for tweets published in 2019 and 2020 on national parks and associated with the Covid-19 pandemic. The tweets came from German-speaking countries, but also other countries worldwide. The most frequently mentioned national parks were located mainly in mountain areas, yet terms, hashtags, emojis and topics directly relating to mountains were rare in comparison to other subjects. Tweets most frequently included words such as forest (Wald), holiday (Urlaub) and nature (Natur);messages related not only to the natural heritage and environmental protection but also to natural disasters. The Covid-19 pandemic and national parks were also a subject of discussion on Twitter, often accompanied by photographs or videos. As 85% of all the tweets studied were never retweeted, 92% never received a reply, and 74% were never assigned likes, we conclude that there is potential to improve (social media) communications by users interested in protected areas in mountainous regions.

Relationship between Lightning, Lightning Fire and Human Activities

Lightning is the main source of natural fire, and lightning fire and other types of forest fires together constitute the global forest fire system. It is generally believed that lightning fire, as a natural fire source, has nothing to do with human beings and is different from man-made fire sources, but in fact, human activities have inextricable links with the occurrence of lightning fire. Since 2019, due to the severe impact of COVID-19 lockdowns, non-essential activities and mobility have decreased, which has led to a significant decrease in pollutant concentrations and lightning. In this paper, we linked the lightning fire with modernization process of human beings, the expansion of habitation, the change of underlying surface, the development of prediction technology and firefighting technology, and the laws and regulations of the country, to explore the impact of human activities on the occurrences of lightning and the forest lightning fire. Lightning is the fire source of the three elements in lightning fire occurrence, the lightning that can cause lightning fire is mainly cloud-to-ground lightning. The human activities in recent decades have profoundly affected the content of aerosols in environment. Aerosols are the main factors affecting lightning, and the large amount of pollution aerosols emitted from urban areas, soot aerosols emitted from biomass combustion and urban heat island effect have all increased the probability of lightning occurrence. The average annual ground lightning density of different land cover types is obviously different, and the construction land has the highest average annual ground lightning density. Intense lightning in forest areas has a higher density and slope. Most of the forests are located in high altitude areas, which is consistent with previous studies showing high lightning frequency in high altitude areas. The lightning in forests is intenser, steeper and more destructive, so forest areas are prone to lightning strikes. Lightning has the characteristic of selective discharge, that is, it will discharge into some special areas, which are also known as lightning selection areas, such as the place groundwater is exposed to the ground, where different conductive soils are connected, and where there are underground metal mines, such as copper and iron mines, and underground lake and water reservoir areas. Lightning strikes are caused by changes in soil conductivity caused by human activities such as mining waste rock sites, reservoir construction on mountain tops, and power transmission lines in mountainous areas. At the same time, due to the abundant trees in the mountainous area, it is also important to avoid the resulting lightning fire. With the development of lightning monitoring technology, a lightning location monitoring system has been established in some areas of China. Especially in 2021, the National Forestry and Grassland Administration launched the "Enlisting and Leading" emergency science and technology project of forest lightning fire prevention and control, and the project team has constructed a lightning fire sensing system in the Daxing'anling region with three-dimensional lightning full-wave detection network as the main body, covering the forest area of the Daxing'anling forest region, which can accurately locate the location of cloud-to-ground lightning in real time, improve the monitoring and warning ability of lightning fires, and improve the efficiency of lightning fire discovery. National laws and regulations indirectly affect lightning fires by affecting forest cover and climate change. This paper is expected to provide reference for the occurrence, prevention and control of forest lightning fire in the future, and provide a basis for the formulation of corresponding policies.

The Wake of History Up close and personal with climate change

It is a mistake to conflate climate variability with climate change or, more specifically, what we have come to call climate change. Major changes in our climate are correlated very strongly with changes in the earth's orbit that occur every 100,000 years. Yet for the past 9,000 years, the earths climate has been remarkably, almost unbelievably, stable. All of which, however, has nothing to say about climate variability. Our climate, the weather we perceive in timeframes we can easily relate to, varies significantly. And in recent years, our climate appears to be getting more and more extreme, the cause of which may very well be anthropogenic warming- Or, as we have come to call it, climate change. The lack of water in Kinbasket Lake was the result of an extremely late and cold spring in British Columbia. Snow packs in the mountains flanking the Columbia River Basin were unseasonably high, and far colder than normal temperatures meant that water remained locked away as snow and ice in the mountains far into spring. Not only were these extremes affecting the Columbia River, they were also plaguing me as far east as Prince Albert, Saskatchewan.

A Study of Oribatid Mites as Potential Intermediate Hosts of Anoplocephalid Tapeworms of Tatra chamois and Tatra marmots from the Tatra Mountains, Central Europe, and Report of a New Intermediate Host for Andrya cuniculi, the Parasite of Leporidae.

Tatra chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra tatrica (Blahout 1972)) and Tatra marmot (Marmota marmota latirostris (Kratochvíl 1961)) are significant endemic subspecies of the subalpine and alpine ranges of the Tatra Mountains in Central Europe. In four studied localities in the range of their typical biotopes in Slovakia and Poland, we investigated intestinal parasites of Tatra chamois and Tatra marmots, with an emphasis on anoplocephalid tapeworms. We also studied the occurrence, species diversity, and abundance of oribatid mites as intermediate hosts thereof, and the prevalence of cysticercoid larval stages of anoplocephalid tapeworms in collected oribatids using morphological and molecular methods. Coprological analyses revealed the average positivity of Moniezia spp. in chamois faeces at 23.5% and Ctenotaenia marmotae in marmot samples at 71.1%, with significant differences between the localities under study. Morphological analyses determined the presence of cysticercoids in five oribatid species: Ceratozetes gracilis, Edwardzetes edwardsi, Scheloribates laevigatus, Trichoribates novus, and Tectocepheus velatus sarekensis. This is the first record of T. v. sarekensis as an intermediate host of anoplocephalid tapeworms, as well as the first report of Andrya cuniculi occurrence in the territory of the Tatra Mountains, confirmed also by molecular methods.

Will participating in ECPs improve organic tea farmers' income in the context of the COVID-19 epidemic?

Product commercialization is an integral part of the production chain. Previously, most farming households sold organic tea to traders, supermarkets, and consumers at traditional markets. However, in the context of the complicated development of the COVID-19 epidemic, they have gradually switched to selling online or on e-commerce platforms (ECPs). The benefits of ECPs to the community's health have been demonstrated in many studies. However, the economic benefits for organic tea farmers have not been specifically considered. This study aims to shed light on whether participating in ECPs improves the income of organic tea farmers in the context of the COVID-19 epidemic. To answer this question, we used the Propensity Score Matching (PSM) method after interviewing 298 organic tea farmers in the mountainous provinces of northern Vietnam. Research results have shown that farming households that use ECPs to sell products have a higher income than those that do not use ECPs. This result implies that supporting and promoting farmers to put organic tea on ECPs is a valuable solution to help them improve their income. Therefore, local authorities and farmers' associations in the mountainous provinces of northern Vietnam should find practical solutions to support farmers' participation in ECPs during the current epidemic.

Rewriting the hills: Youth sociality as a mode of navigating unemployment in a context of outmigration in North India

This article examines the ways in which educated yet unemployed young people attempt to configure ways of being productive in a small hill town in North India. Young people who do not migrate to large urban centres from this township are the subject of contradictory discourses: in some moments they are seen as an antidote to the ‘problem of migration', but in other moments they are ridiculed for not making good use of their time. Both discourses suggest a present wherein young people are not productive. Drawing on ethnographic material gathered over a ten-month period, this article frames youth sociality as a mode registering a sense of productivity and navigating unemployment. I argue that while hanging out at a computer shop, young men were distancing themselves from notions of idling and creating masculine youth cultures in which they sought to situate themselves as productive young people. I make this argument by unpacking exchanges between these young men and by analysing the tangible ways they helped the shop function. I also draw debates about youth sociality into dialogue with theoretical insights from rural geography to illuminate how educated youth attempt to imbue rural and peri-urban space with new possibilities. I show how educated youth attempt to reanimate rural space and forge affirmative rural futures by emphasizing their connections with Indian modernity. Attending to the ways in which educated yet unemployed youth attempt to situate themselves within productive relations is set to become of increasing importance given the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

JOIN US IN AURORA FOR #2023 ANALYTICS

Burciaga discusses the 2023 INFORMS Business Analytics Conference from April 16-18. This year's conference holds a special significance because Aurora was the original location of the 2020 Analytics Conference, which unfortunately had to be held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, we have come full circle, and as this year's conference chair, he can't wait to welcome everyone to Aurora. Located just outside Denver at the incredible Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center, a premier event and entertainment venue with breathtaking views of the Rocky Mountains, this year's conference pairs an upscale and intimate resort setting with countless opportunities to learn, network and share insights with top analytics talent from across the globe.

What is to Hand: The Fold as Landscape Within Textile Imagination

This article explores the fold and textile imagination within art by using as main case study the author's project Imaginary Landscapes. This work consists of a series of photographs taken during the first COVID-19 lockdown in the UK in 2020 and was motivated by a longing for spaces and places at a time of confinement. It provided an opportunity to work with "material to hand”, pointing to Martin Heidegger and Barbara Bolt's discussion of his theory regarding "handling.” The cloth as arranged or folded allows for light to enhance form whilst suggesting landscapes such as shorelines, mountains, forests, deserts or volcanoes. The discussion refers to Gilles Deleuze's reading of Leibniz, Christine Buci-Gluckmann's observations on the Baroque, and to various theoretical and artistic positions concerning the fold, drapery, and textile imagination within different visual contexts, including Giuliana Bruno's observations on the fold in relation to the screen. Imaginary Landscapes is explored with particular attention to contemporary artists Christo and Jeanne Claude, Christian Boltanski and Angela de la Cruz. The argument concludes that the fold as visual and conceptual process allows us to engage in spatio-temporal relations where the appreciation of materiality through handling/folding informs ideas of movement within and across media.

Gaining insight from the most challenging expedition: climate change from the perspective of Canadian mountain guides

Nature based tourism (NBT) is becoming increasingly popular, particularly following the COVID-19 pandemic as people began to sought outdoor activities. Accompanying the projected rise in NBT demand in a post COVID-19 era are increasing challenges associated with climate change, particularly in mountain regions. However, there is limited local knowledge documented to date from those who are intricately involved in mountain NBT activities and have experienced the impacts of climate change first hand. Using an online survey (n = 169), this research is the first to present the intimate knowledge of mountain guides in Canada, offering novel insight into climate change risks and opportunities for NBT in mountain regions, including strategies to contend with risk and adaptation. From this survey, 99% of guides indicated that they have experienced change in the mountain environment throughout the course of their career and due to the adaptive nature of guides, many have already implemented strategies to adapt to the impacts of climate change. While findings presented in this paper offer practical knowledge to plan for a future threatened with rapid climatic change, further research is required to explore effectiveness of adaptation strategies, scope of adaptive capacity, changes in natural infrastructure, and guides' roles as educators. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

National Parks in Twitter: A German-speaking perspective

Mining data from social media platforms has become increasingly popular to explore aspects of human behaviour, including attitudes towards the natural environment or visiting protected areas. Most studies and analytical algorithms refer to digital content published in English. However, it is also useful to conduct research in other languages to complement existing international studies. Our main aim was to explore Twitter content on national parks, published between 2006 and July 2021, in German. The study also presents a differentiated analysis for tweets published in 2019 and 2020 on national parks and associated with the Covid-19 pandemic. The tweets came from German-speaking countries, but also other countries worldwide. The most frequently mentioned national parks were located mainly in mountain areas, yet terms, hashtags, emojis and topics directly relating to mountains were rare in comparison to other subjects. Tweets most frequently included words such as forest (Wald), holiday (Urlaub) and nature (Natur);messages related not only to the natural heritage and environmental protection but also to natural disasters. The Covid-19 pandemic and national parks were also a subject of discussion on Twitter, often accompanied by photographs or videos. As 85% of all the tweets studied were never retweeted, 92% never received a reply, and 74% were never assigned likes, we conclude that there is potential to improve (social media) communications by users interested in protected areas in mountainous regions. © 2023, Eco.mont. All Rights Reserved.

Challenges and Opportunities for Risk Management of Volcanic Hazards in Small-Island Developing States

The explosive volcanic eruptions of La Soufrière volcano, St Vincent and the Grenadines, in April 2021 caused the displacement of thousands of people, resulting in heavy disruption of livelihoods and economic activities, destruction of critical infrastructure, and volcanic ash deposits that affected the entire mountainous island of St Vincent and the neighboring island of Barbados. The resulting triple crisis in the region included volcanological risks, the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic, and hydrometeorological risks due to the approaching hurricane season. This article analyzes the scientific and operational activities that The University of the West Indies Seismic Research Centre undertook after effusive activity was detected in December 2020, as well as the actions taken during an official response mission of the United Nations, led by the Joint Environment Unit of the United Nations Environment Programme and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Geneva and upon request for international environmental assistance from the Government of St Vincent. It examines the interplay and collaboration between these 2 organizations and other disaster risk reduction agencies. The article also highlights how the interconnected, systemic nature of risks and disasters emphasizes the ultimate need for regional coordination and collaboration across sectors, including scientific monitoring networks, national, regional, and international emergency preparedness and response agencies, academia, and the private sector. The presented case study for elucidating the ongoing lahar hazard at La Soufrière volcano supports a long-term view for planning and mitigation in this challenging topography. This will help to ensure that the volcanic risks in the Caribbean region are appropriately considered a major component of the multihazard approach undertaken by national authorities and scientists to manage community safety and sustainable economic development through adequate means of disaster risk reduction and emergency preparedness.

Coping strategies in the face of the health crisis: A comparative study in nurses from the Ecuadorian coast and highlands / Estrategias de afrontamiento ante la crisis sanitaria: un estudio comparativo en enfermeros de costa y sierra ecuatoriana

Se realizó una encuesta transversal de dos muestras separadas por conveniencia de enero a marzo de 2021 a fin de comparar la prevalencia de percepción de riesgo e identificar diferentes estrategias de afrontamiento en enfermeros de la costa y la sierra ecuatoriana. Las muestras incluyeron dos grupos de profesionales de enfermería para un total de 518. El 49,0% (n= 254) de los participantes laboraban en la sierra ecuatoriana y el 50,8% (n= 263) prestaban sus servicios en la costa ecuatoriana. Muestreados provenientes de varias clínicas, tanto en la costa como en la sierra ecuatoriana, fueron abordados aleatoriamente por el entrevistador para participar en el estudio. Se examinaron y compararon los resultados de las pruebas de las tres muestras. Los grupos se eligieron en función de la conveniencia del muestreo y la supuesta conciencia de los factores de riesgo de COVID-19. En cuanto a la percepción de riesgo, su prevalencia es significativamente mayor para las enfermeras de la costa que las de la sierra. Las enfermeras que prefieren trabajar en equipo durante la crisis sanitaria tenían probabilidades alrededor de 0,30 más bajas, lo que puede interpretarse como un factor protector. Respecto al miedo al contagio no se hallaron diferencias entre enfermeras de la costa o la sierra(AU)

A cross-sectional survey of two samples separated by convenience was carried out from January to March 2021 to compare the prevalence of risk perception and identify different coping strategies in nurses from the Ecuadorian coast and highlands. The samples included two groups of nursing professionals for a total of 518. 49.0% (n= 254) of the participants worked in the Ecuadorian highlands and 50.8% (n= 263) provided their services on the ecuadorian coast. Samples from various clinics, both on the coast and in the Ecuadorian highlands, were randomly approached by the interviewer to participate in the study. The test results of the three samples were examined and compared. Groups were chosen based on sampling convenience and presumed awareness of COVID-19 risk factors. Regarding the perception of risk, its prevalence is significantly higher for nurses from the coast than those from the mountains. Nurses who prefer to work in a team during the health crisis had probabilities around 0.30 lower, which can be interpreted as a protective factor. Regarding the fear of contagion, no differences were found between nurses from the coast or the mountains(AU)

MORPHOFUNCTIONAL STATE OF ATHLETES WITH A HISTORY OF COVID-19 IN THE CONDITIONS OF THE MIDDLE MOUNTAINS

Objective of the study was to assess the morphofunctional state of the body of athletes who had previously undergone COVID-19. Methods and structure of the study. A scientific examination of athletes in mid-mountain conditions was carried out between 3-6 days of training camps at an altitude of 1240 m in Kislovodsk, on Mount Small Saddle, in FSUE «Yug-Sport» in 87 highly qualified male athletes, age-21.3 ±6.2 years. Athletes were divided into the main group-earlier, during the year, who had COVID-19 (n=42) and the control group-who did not have COVID-19 (n=45). Athletes of different sports were studied: the functional state of the cardiovascular and respiratory systems, heart rate variability, body composition. Results and conclusions. The results of the study showed that athletes who had previously recovered from COVID-19 were characterized by greater age, height, lean body mass, and a stiffness index associated with blood pressure in large arteries. Men who have been ill with symptoms of varying severity differ from those who have been asymptomatic in lower blood saturation. An analysis of the data from the standpoint of adaptation theory and systems theory led to the conclusion that, despite the seemingly favorable morphofunctional state of male athletes, it is characterized by an emergency transition process of adaptation, during which various diseases may exacerbate, which should be paid attention to by sports medic physicians working with athletes and coaches. © 2022, Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kul'tury i sporta. All rights reserved.

The Factors and Relationships Influencing Forest Hiking Exercise Characteristics after COVID-19 Occurrence: At Seoul Metropolitan Area and in Hikers' 20s and 30s.

The growing interest and usage of green space during the pandemic relates to why greenery increases enjoyment of daily life and alleviates troubles arising from infectious periods. However, it is necessary to understand what reactions to the degree of COVID-19's spread were expressed in hiking exercise characteristics (hiking frequency, actual movement distance, average speed, total exercise time). To understand the progress of forest usage behavior during the pandemic, we analyzed factors influencing hiking exercise characteristics and relationships between those factors and hiking exercise characteristics. Hiking record data were obtained (2019-2020) from the workout app "Tranggle" pertaining to hikers in their 20s and 30s who visited the 13 mountains in the Seoul Metropolitan Area most frequently. The differences in hiking exercise characteristics (2019 data subtracted from 2020) were linked with factor data that could be related to them, including the degree of COVID-19's spread (Rt). To explore relationships between hiking exercise characteristics and factors, we developed four models with a linear mixed model. We found that Rt, week, weekdays/weekends, and PM10 contributed to explaining the hiking exercise characteristics' differences. As a result of this analysis, the degree of COVID-19's spread (Rt) affected hiking frequency; the week affected hiking frequency and actual movement distance; weekdays or weekends affected hiking frequency, actual movement distance, average speed, and total exercise time; and PM10 affected hiking frequency. These findings indicate that hiking was an alternative way for those looking for a new strategy to replace lost opportunities for physical activity. Therefore, we conclude that it is necessary to induce the usage of green space so that many people can take advantage of the functions and benefits of greenery, which stood out during the pandemic era.

Climate‐linked increasing vegetation fires in global high mountains

The spatiotemporal variability of vegetation fires is essential for understanding changes in the climate and ecosystem in mountainous regions. MODIS Collection 6 active fire products indicate that the area burned by vegetation fires declined globally from over 4.27 million km2 to less than 3.52 million km2 annually during 2001–2021. In contrast, global high mountains higher than 3000 m have experienced an overall increase in their burned area and suffered record‐breaking wildfires from August to December 2020. Although high mountains accounted for less than 0.03% of the global burned area during 2001–2021, this proportion had more than tripled by 2020. This unprecedented wildfire record in 2020 could be mainly caused by favorable fire weather conditions such as low relative humidity, low soil water and high temperature.

What innovations would enable the tourism and hospitality industry in India to re-build?

Purpose>The aim of the paper is to explore the challenges and opportunities that the Indian Tourism and Hospitality faces to rebuild itself. The questions discussed include: what is to be done, the role of the Government at the Federal and Provincial level and how should the stakeholders of the tourism ecosystem play out?Design/methodology/approach>The 2020 expectation for Indian Tourism was for a bumper year, a year that would be remembered, but then the pandemic proved to be devastating. This article is based on secondary literature and discussions with industry representatives, which provide guidance and pointers for future preparedness.Findings>The industry went from a difficult situation during the lockdowns, to a scenario of hope and opportunity initiated by domestic travellers, who provided a ray of hope for tourism stakeholders.Social implications>In the wake of the pandemic, businesses suffered from a lack of business;people lost jobs, travel came to a standstill and so it was mitigation that was important. The way the tourism ecosystem sought to return to normal and build on it for future has a number of implications for relevant changes to society.Originality/value>Resilience, restructuring and renewal have characterised the tourism business in India and this paper investigates new dimensions for innovatively managing the situation.