Flood disaster has gained global attention due to the huge impact it has on human lives, economies, and sustainable environments. Flood disaster preparedness, which can significantly be influenced by disaster risk perception, has been highlighted as an effective way to manage flood disaster risk, as many other means have proved futile, yet no study has attempted using multiple dimensions to analyze this relationship in Ghana. Therefore, this study, using a survey of 369 households in the most flood-prone region, Accra Metropolis, analyzed the influence of flood disaster risk perception on urban households’ flood disaster preparedness. Based on the Protective Action Decision Model, the empirical models were constructed and estimated using the Tobit and binary logistic regression models. The results show that the majority of households (60.16%) were unprepared for flood disasters, and the perception of flood disaster risk and the sustainability risk posed by floods significantly affect flood disaster preparedness behaviours of households in a positive direction. The total number of flood disaster preparedness behaviours adopted was significantly related to probability, the threat to lives, sense of worry, and sustainability risk perceptions. Finally, income, education, and house ownership, among other household and individual characteristics, had significant positive effects on preparations for flood disasters. These findings suggest that effective policies to mitigate flood disasters must incorporate risk communication to boost households’ flood disaster preparedness.

The study of tradeoffs/synergies among ecosystem services (ESs) is highly significant for land-use planning and regional ecosystem optimization. Land-use change and topographic factors have important implications for ESs. Strengthening the comparative analysis of the capacity of ESs provided by different land-use types in specific regions, studying the topographic gradient effects of ecosystem service trade-offs/synergies with slope changes, and identifying the dominate trade-off/synergy relationship among ESs will help us to carry out ecosystem regulation according to local conditions through land-use layout optimization at a fine scale. Our research site was located in the Dabie Mountains of western Anhui Province, China (DBM), where, based on the InVEST software, R language, self-organizing maps (SOM), and GeoDA, the temporal and spatial variations of five typical ESs, including food supply, soil retention, water yield, carbon storage, and biodiversity maintenance from 2005 to 2020, were analyzed, and spatial distributions of the different ESs clusters were also recognized by using the SOM method. Moreover, the impacts of land-use type and slope on ESs, and the characteristics of trade-offs/synergies among the five ESs, were discussed. Results showed, firstly, that the total values of ESs showed a changing trend of “three increases and two decreases” from 2005 to 2020. Among the ESs, food supply, soil retention and water yield showed upward trends, with annual growth rates of 2.83%, 6.50% and 2.98%, respectively, whereas carbon storage and biodiversity maintenance showed downward trends, with annual decline rates of 0.03% and 0.07%, respectively. Second, the results showed that the Moran’s I index of the total ESs was 0.3995 in 2005 and 0.4305 in 2020, respectively, indicating that they had significant spatial clustering characteristics. The Low-Low clustering regions with reduced changes were mainly in the central and northern parts of the study area, whereas the High-High clustering regions with increased changes were found distributed mainly in the south of the study area. Thirdly, it was found that cropland and woodland were the main contributors to the total amounts of ESs, but the supply capacity of ESs per unit area of woodland was the largest, constituting nearly 1/3 of the total supply capacity of the ESs. Last, the slope effect on trade-offs and synergies was significant between typical ecosystem service pairs in the study area; trade-offs were the main relationships between the pairs of ESs in the study area, which accounted for nearly 60% of all types of trade-offs/synergies during the 15 years. In addition, the spatial distributions of the trade-offs/synergies between ESs pairs were visualized clearly, and the six ES bundles were identified by using the SOM method at the township administrative scale. The identification of ecosystem service bundles is of great significance for the division of ecological functional zones and ecological regulation in the DBM.

Research on ecosystem services and residents’ well-being in old revolutionary base areas is an important task for China’s ecological civilization construction and rural revitalization. Taking Jinzhai County, the core area of Dabie Mountains, China, as an example, based on InVEST model, the methods of spatial autocorrelation and coupling coordinated development degree, the spatiotemporal evolution, spatial heterogeneity and coupling association patterns of ecosystem services and multidimensional well-being in the study area from 2005 to 2020 were discussed. The major results are: In the past 15 years, in the core area of the Dabie Mountains, ecosystem services such as food supply, soil retention and water yield showed an upward trend, carbon sequestration and biodiversity maintenance showed a downward trend. The comprehensive index of multidimensional well-being in the core area of Dabie Mountain increased by 27.23% and the spatial difference in multidimensional well-being is gradually narrowing. By the analysis of coupling coordination, the number of units with the type of coupling disharmony between ecosystem services and multidimensional well-being in the study area decreased significantly from 56.85% in 2005 to 26.81% in 2020, respectively. The analysis of geographical detection showed that the habitat quality factor was the dominant controlling factor of coupling coordination spatial difference. By bivariate spatial autocorrelation analysis, in the past 15 years, the number of units with the “high ecology-high well-being” synergy type increased from 5.44% to 13.31%. The results can provide a reference for accurate identification, optimal regulation and synergistic improvement between ecosystem services and relative poverty in the Dabie Mountain area.

Massive and rapid urbanization has led to population loss in rural areas, particularly in emerging and developing countries like China. As a result, houses in rural areas become vacant, and the house prices in cities, at the same time, skyrocket. While the research on the vacant farmhouses market (VFM) is a pressing issue for sustainable urbanization and has profound policy implications in China, few empirical studies have been conducted on analyzing the willingness of house owners and urban residents to participate in the VFM and any influencing factors—as there is no such operating market in China. To bridge the research gap, we first conducted a questionnaire-based survey on rural households and urban residents with a random sampling method in six cities in Sichuan Province, China. A total of 571 valid samples, including 284 rural households and 287 urban residents, were obtained. Based on these survey data, we then used logistic regression to estimate the influencing factors on the willingness of house owners and urban residents in renting in/out or selling/buying vacant farmhouses. The results showed that: (1) more than 60% of rural house owners and urban residents are willing to participate in a potential VFM; (2) the main influencing factors of house owners’ willingness to rent out or sell their houses include the sociodemographic characteristics of farmers (e.g., age, household income) and characteristics of the vacant houses (e.g., distance to the main roads, the status of vacant houses), while the major factors that affect the willingness of urban residents to rent in or purchase vacant rural houses are the sociodemographic characteristics of urban residents themselves (e.g., occupation), the status of the potential houses, and the perceived housing market; (3) most farmers want a regulated platform for the vacant farmhouses; urban residents pay more attention to the good natural environment in rural areas and the infrastructure and public service levels of vacant farmhouses in rural areas. This study thus showed the necessity, feasibility, and potential challenges and barriers involved in establishing a VFM in China.