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This study examines how integrating digital technologies into government operations can enhance urban governance in smart cities. It specifically looks at how these advancements can contribute to the development of sustainable smart cities in alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The research employs two analytical frameworks to assess how advanced technologies impact and integrate with government functions. The first framework examines the effects of digitalization on sustainable smart cities, while the second offers a holistic approach to optimizing government processes through digital transformation. The research demonstrates the various advantages of digitalization, such as enhanced public services, advanced infrastructure, and greater transparency and accountability. Nevertheless, obstacles like data security, privacy issues, and disparities in digital access are recognized, requiring cautious handling. The research affirms that while integrating digital technologies in government operations can significantly support urban sustainability, the strategy is crucial to manage potential threats and foster inclusivity and environmental responsibility. These models provide practical recommendations for governments to responsibly and effectively utilize digital tools, ultimately fostering the development of resilient, efficient, and inclusive smart cities.

PurposeThis study aims to empirically analyze a sound commitment and a consistent integration of sustainable development goals (SDGs) in the corporate reporting and management systems of companies that have a leading position in sustainability.Design/methodology/approachThe study applies a content analysis procedure based on a proposed analytical framework to codify the commitment and the SDG integration. In order to analyze the consistency of the integration, this study has provided a “SDG integration” score based on fuzzy inference systems methods. The companies in the sample have been identified as benchmarks in terms of sustainability in a specific region of Spain.FindingsThe findings show a lack of formality regarding the SDG commitment at the highest decision-making level and a low level of SDG integration in the reporting and management systems. These results are mainly explained because the most companies do not prioritize according to the materiality analysis and those SDGs more reported have not been deployed along targets and KPIs in a consistent way.Research limitations/implicationsThe results provide practical implications that help to overcome the limitations in terms of comparison and consistency of the SDGs-reported information. It also illustrates how the leading sustainable companies are doing the SDG reporting and suggests which elements could be improved to promote a consistent integration of the SDGs in the management systems.Originality/valueThis study provides new work lines in the promotion of an effective SDG-business reporting based on a robust management structure that allows an alignment among the SDG-business decisions based on a normative, strategic and operational approach.

This article is a critical assessment of the implementation frameworks of Agenda 2030 in the Arab region through a study of the deficiencies pertaining to the contextualization of the Agenda in the region. Seeking to identify the scope of implementation that would allow for the eventual streamlining of action towards the achievement of all of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the authors argue that the region 's political and institutional context is one of peacebuilding and resilience-building, imposing several overarching considerations pertaining to the priority intervention areas. Drawing on the findings of Ianovichina (2018), the article identifies the key levers ofpeacebuilding as being the reduction of real inequalities, the resumption of public and social services, and the promotion of equity and the rule of law. It then explores the policy deficiencies underlying the mobilization of these key levers. While domestic resources mobilization remains crippled by political exclusiveness and institutional inefficiency, the implementation offoreign financing frameworks intrinsically depends on that said mobilization. The authors conclude with a \"roadmap\" for improvements in the contextualization of Agenda 2030 by focusing on fiscal and financial reform and on the curbing of illicit financial flows on one hand, and de-escalation and institutional peacebuilding on the other.

Background: Team-based learning (TBL) was studied in several preclinical settings, but evidence for its effectiveness in community nursing education is scant. A community health care nursing course was developed, and nursing students engaged in TBL to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 3. Purpose: This study aimed to examine the effect of TBL model integration on students’ learning attitude, community understanding, and community care competence for achieving SDG 3 and determine the extent to which the TBL model altered students’ nursing competence for providing community health care. We compared the effect of TBL and traditional learning (TL) in terms of community health care knowledge objectives. Methods: TBL was employed as the teaching strategy to guide students’ discussion of community care issues, allowing them to fully utilize the knowledge acquired in their community practice. We used an unblinded crossover design, and 99 students participated in the community health nursing course. Results: The results demonstrated that TBL improved participants’ community understanding and enhanced their skills for assessing and fulfilling community needs. The experimental and control groups differed significantly in their TBL performance, learning attitude, and nursing competencies. The performance of those who engaged in TBL was higher than that of those who engaged in TL on all community issues. TBL appears to be a more effective method than TL in terms of achieving nursing students’ knowledge objectives. Conclusions: Regarding practical application, the proposed intervention enables nursing students to acquire professional knowledge related to community aging health care and nursing skills, and establish partnerships with community residents. This facilitates the achievement of the United Nations’ sustainable development goal of ensuring healthy living and promoting well-being at all ages.

(1) Background: Water security is at the front and center of climate change, human security, and sustainable development in regions and communities with competing water usage contexts, climate change effects, and cross-border water-sharing agreements, resulting in conflicts arising. Shared water agreements are affected by geopolitics, segregation, water availability, and access rights. Climate change can worsen water problems by changing precipitation trends or causing droughts. (2) Methods: Document and content analysis and primary and secondary data assessment were used to develop spatio-temporal patterns. In establishing a water security narrative for the region, the selection of SDG 6 (water) and SDG 13 (climate action) targets and indicators was also evaluated. UN-Water’s 2013 water security conceptual framework was used to examine water and climate security concerns and give a set of principles to assess gaps and fulfill needs toward a ‘water security future’ for communities and states in the region. Also, hydro-political perspectives in the region or state were evaluated using discourse analysis and guiding notes from emerging scholarship to support suggestions and prospective solutions toward mitigating water insecurity and risks from climate change and disasters, including resource (water) related conflicts. (3) Results: Hydro-hegemony keeps the water sector in one state under massive stress, and the lack of consensus-building for the regional water agenda continues to breed conflicts between communities and states. (4) Conclusions: We reiterate that the escalating water and climate crises will deepen, and at the national and local scale for OPT, the restrictions and geopolitical tensions about shared waters can render coping and adaptation mechanisms for people and stakeholders challenging.

This study explored undergraduate students’ conceptions of sustainable development by asking about their definition of a sustainable world, current issues of sustainable development, and the necessary mindset and skillsets to build a sustainable world. We derived data from 107 participants’ open-ended answers that we collected through an online survey at the beginning and the end of the sustainability class. Text mining with Natural Language Processing (NLP), principal component analysis (PCA), and co-occurrence network analysis were conducted to understand the changes in students’ conception of sustainable development. In addition, we also conducted the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) dictionary to investigate the psychometric properties of students’ awareness and understanding related to sustainable development. This advanced analysis technique provided a rich understanding of university students’ perceptions of sustainable development compared to what the UN initially defined as sustainable development goals (SDGs). The results showed imperative insights into the benefits of sustainability experiences and knowledge that generate motivation to develop students’ competencies as change agents.

Potato (Solanum tuberosum) is an important food crop. However, intensive cultivation has led to increased reliance on chemical fertilizers, raising environmental and economic concerns. One of the concerns in potato plantations is phosphorus, which often exhibits low availability due to leaching and poor use efficiency, coupled with rising fertilizer production costs. This study investigates the agronomic and economic impacts of using natural rock amendments combined with plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) as sustainable alternatives to chemical fertilizers on the yield and tuber quality of potato. A field experiment assessed three treatments: conventional chemical fertilizers (T1), reduced chemical fertilizers combined with PGPR (Bacillus megaterium, Bacillus mucilaginosus, and Azotobacter) (T2), and natural rock amendments of potassium feldspar and rock phosphate combined with PGPR (T3). Results showed that T2 and T3 demonstrated improved tuber quality compared to T1, with T3 achieving the highest starch content (314.05 mg/g FW) and reduced sugar content (102.03 mg/g FW). Furthermore, T3 improved soil quality after the growing season, showing higher phosphorus and potassium availability compared to T1. Economically, T3 reduced operating costs by 11% and achieved the highest yield (42 tons/ha). The return on investment for T3 reached approximately 79.48% (USD 3988/ha), with a 40.9% profit increase compared to T1 (USD 2460/ha) These findings confirm that integrating PGPR with natural rock fertilizers offers a cost-effective and durable alternative to conventional fertilization practices, enhancing productivity and profitability while providing significant opportunities for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and promoting long-term soil sustainability.

A key but contentious aspect of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is the means of implementation (MOI). Many developing countries emphasize the importance of international assistance while developed countries focus more on domestic financing and the private sector. The text of the SDGs includes a broad range of MOI. However, a discussion has arisen about whether countries should prioritize some goals over others due partly to concerns that MOI may be insufficient. In contrast, this article argues for a more optimistic outlook concerning MOI and the feasibility of achieving the SDGs. First, most SDGs and targets are themselves means—or intermediate goals—contributing to the achievement of other goals. The structure of the SDGs blurs the fact that different goals have different functions, such as providing resources or enabling environments. Greater focus on the interlinkages and synergies among goals could enhance the effectiveness of implementation and reduce costs. Second, integrated planning and implementation, needed for leveraging synergies among goals, will require enhanced capacity, particularly for governance and coordination. We argue that the strengthening of such capacity is a central MOI that requires more attention since it is a precondition for the effective mobilization and deployment of other MOI. Third, although upfront investments may seem high in absolute terms, financial feasibility is realistic when considering existing global financial stocks and flows and the expected benefits.

At present, most developing countries need to improve the quality of the built environment by means of large-scale infrastructure construction, thereby promoting rapid urbanization. The quality of the built environment (QU) and its environmental pressure (PU) have become our primary focus to achieve a globally acknowledged vision of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In this study, we proposed an overall workflow by combining the proven urban sustainability (SU) assessment tool with the evaluation process and the analysis of the spatiotemporal dimension to investigate the urban characteristics of the 41 cities in the Yangtze River Delta. Our results showed an upward trend of urban sustainability from 2010 to 2018, but there are still 19 cities with unsustainable urbanization processes. The megalopolis is rapidly progressing toward an imbalanced state. Specifically, the urban sustainability of the southern region performs better than the northern region, coastal cities perform better than the inland cities, and the regional peripheral cities perform better than the inner cities. Across the 41 cities in the delta, five different relational trends between QU and PU have been found to predict their future development. The results of this research will help decision-makers to coordinate the future development of regional integration between cities and to target the alleviation of the adverse chain reaction brought about by the situation of imbalance or further improving urban sustainability.

A sustainable downscaled procedure using smartphone-based colorimetric determination of manganese (Mn(II)) was developed. This novel Mn(II) determination procedure is proposed using a simple, available microwell-plate platform and a smartphone as a detector. This approach is based on the oxidation of 3,3′,5,5′-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) by periodate using Mn(II) as a catalyst. The catalytic kinetics of Mn(II) under different conditions was investigated to determine the optimum condition where the different catalytic activities of various concentrations of Mn(II) evince. Under the optimum condition, the bluish-green product of oxidized TMB, proportioned to the concentration of Mn(II), was monitored using a smartphone camera, and the color signals were processed using ImageJ Software. The developed procedure showed great selectivity and sensitivity as linearity ranged from 1.8 × 10−6 to 4.6 × 10−5 M (0.1 to 2.5 μg/mL). The limits of detection and quantitation were 3.6 × 10−6 and 1.1 × 10−5 M (0.2 and 0.6 μg/mL), respectively. The determination of Mn(II) in freshwater samples was demonstrated to assess environmental water quality as an initial model to more easily promote water management according to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs). The intensity of the red could be successfully applied to evaluate Mn(II) in canals and river water with no significant differences compared with the reference method of Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometry at a confidence level of 95%.