Understanding the role of land use type and topographic features in shaping wildfire regimes received much attention because of the intensification of wildfire activities. The intensifying wildfires in the western United States are a great concern both for the environment and society. We investigate the patterns of wildfire occurrence in the western United States at the landscape level by using 118 wildfires with areas greater than 405 ha in the study year of 2018. The selection ratios were calculated to measure fire preference with regard to land cover type, slope, and aspect. The results suggest that grasslands, steeper slopes, and south-facing aspects were more susceptible to wildfires in the western United States. Additionally, there were regional variations in wildfire susceptibility in Washington, Oregon, and California. The most wildfire-prone land cover type in Washington was mixed forests, whereas that in Oregon and California was grassland. The findings of this study improve the understanding of the role of land use changes and topographic features in shaping wildfire patterns in the western United States, providing insights for managing wildfire risks for forest management strategies at the landscape level.

Understanding the underlying mechanism of how various dimensions of urbanization affect CO₂ emissions could be helpful for achieving the goal of low-carbon cities in China. However, previous research has seldomly examined this relationship granularly in economically developed regions at the micro level, nor did they examine the mediating effects of economic development, industrial structure, and coal consumption. Using the panel dataset of 80 counties from 2002 to 2021 at the county level in Jiangsu, China, this study investigates the direct and indirect effects of population, economic, and land urbanizations on CO₂ emissions in Jiangsu province and examines the regional heterogeneity. The findings indicate that population and economic urbanization have positive impacts on CO₂ emissions, whereas land urbanization has insignificant effects. This finding is supported by various robustness tests. Population and economic urbanizations are found to have significantly positive impacts on CO₂ emissions in the southern and northern Jiangsu regions, whereas none of the three dimensions are significant in the middle Jiangsu region. Economic urbanization contributes the most to CO₂ emissions in southern Jiangsu. In addition, our results indicate that multi-dimensional urbanizations affect CO₂ emissions through the mediating roles of economic development, industrial structure, and coal consumption. Our analysis shed some insights into the nuanced relationship between multi-dimensional urbanization and carbon emissions, which could contribute to sustainable urban transformation.

The frequency of forest disturbances has increased under intensifying climate changes, and the economic impacts of forest disturbances should receive more attention. This paper systematically reviews models of the economic impacts of forest disturbances and summarizes four commonly applied models, which are “with and without” analysis, equilibrium models, the intervention model, and the social welfare model. The advantages and disadvantages of these four models are presented and compared, and literature using these models is introduced. The review of the economic assessment of damage caused by forest disturbances is expected to provide insights for researchers in this field and useful information about economic losses, price dynamics, and welfare redistribution for policymakers.

The value realization of forest ecological products in mountain areas represents a critical pathway for China to reconcile ecological protection with rural prosperity. This study develops a conceptual framework integrating new economic geography, information economics, transaction cost theory, and Schumpeterian innovation theory to examine the potential complementarities between the Four Good Rural Roads initiative and digital village construction, their underlying mechanisms, and relevant boundary conditions. The analysis proposes that: (1) transportation accessibility and digital connectivity may facilitate forest ecological product value realization through distinct but complementary mechanisms by reducing spatial barriers, information asymmetries, and transaction costs; (2) their interactions may promote resource reallocation and business model innovation through the progressive analytical framework of “physical connectivity–digital value enhancement–ecological efficiency restructuring”, potentially improving value realization efficiency; and (3) potential transportation–digital policy synergies face institutional, spatial, governance, and market constraints, which may limit their effectiveness in improving value realization efficiency. Based on these theoretical insights, the study identifies four interrelated policy directions: improving physical and digital accessibility, supporting value discovery, strengthening institutional coordination, and promoting sustainable market formation and business model innovation. This study advances the theoretical understanding of transportation–digital policy complementarities in forest ecological product value realization and provides a basis for context-dependent policy implications in mountainous regions.