Urbanisation and climate change require cities in North-West Europe to rethink water infrastructure. While blue-green infrastructure (BGI), including nature-based solutions, has high potential, implementation is challenged by diverse actors interacting and making decisions in different configurations and contexts, characteristic of polycentric governance. While research on BGI is expanding, these complex multi-actor interactions at the local, operational level remain poorly understood. To better understand how polycentric configurations unfold, this paper uses the concept of Network of Action Situations (NAS). We examine how contextual factors and linkages between action situations (biophysical, institutional, informational, and actor-related) influence the outcomes of BGI projects in Brussels, Belgium, and in Enschede, the Netherlands. Findings show that outcomes depend more on the quality than the quantity of linkages across Action Situations. Contextual factors strongly influence both linkages and results. Strengthening formal institutional and informational linkages emerges as particularly critical for effective BGI implementation.
As climate change intensifies wildfire frequency and severity, developing effective mitigation strategies is essential for climate adaptation policy. This study evaluates the effectiveness of three wildfire mitigation measures in South Korea from 2015 to 2022 - disaster prevention forests (afforestation), forest thinning, and wildfire fighter deployment - using panel generalized estimating equations (GEEs) across 229 municipalities. Results show that both afforestation and thinning significantly reduce wildfire-damaged areas, with thinning having a stronger effect (6.4% vs. 1.8% per 100 hectares). Conversely, increased firefighter deployment does not consistently reduce damage, suggesting resources are concentrated in high-risk areas rather than reducing overall vulnerability. Spatial and climatic heterogeneity analysis indicates that afforestation is most effective in urban areas, while thinning remains robust across all land cover types and under extreme drought conditions. These findings underscore the need for region- and climate-specific mitigation approaches and offer insights transferable to other countries with similar environmental, climatic, and land-use contexts.
This paper differentiates market demand into demand upturn and downturn and investigates how government procurement affects corporate green innovation across these demand conditions in China. Our findings show that enterprises reduce green innovation during demand downturn but increase it during upturn. Government procurement mitigates the negative impact of downturn on green innovation, while its effect during upturn remains statistically insignificant. Mechanism analyses indicate that government procurement functions by stabilizing corporate development expectations and easing financing constraints. Heterogeneity analyses further indicate that the impact of government procurement varies with firms' cash holdings, ownership, degree of internationalization, and pollution type, and is stronger when procurement is persistent or non-local. Moreover, government procurement is particularly effective under persistent rather than episodic downturn. Importantly, the role of procurement during downturn is concentrated in substantive green innovation. Finally, its effectiveness is greater in regions with weaker environmental regulations and lower green finance development.
Air Quality Management Plans (AQMPs) are strategic policy tools used to assess air quality, set objectives, and guide interventions at national, regional, and local levels. Despite their widespread adoption globally, air quality continues to deteriorate in many regions, raising concerns about their effectiveness in achieving intended outcomes. South Africa, with both an advanced air quality management framework and persistent pollution challenges, provides a useful case for evaluation. This study assesses the effectiveness of AQMPs by analysing the perceptions of key stakeholders. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 40 participants across four stakeholder groups: government, industry, civil society, and consultants. The findings suggest that the perceived ineffectiveness of AQMPs is driven less by the design of the plans themselves and more by broader governance challenges, including institutional fragmentation, weak implementation capacity, and unclear or poorly defined objectives, which collectively constrain their ability to achieve meaningful air quality improvements.
