Forest degradation occurs in natural World Heritage Sites (WHS) in the Global South despite the implementation of various strategic policies and the World Heritage Convention (WHC) on forest protections of the sites and this poses challenges to improve natural heritage sustainability. The current study aims to investigate spatial determinants of forest degradation in the Kilimanjaro WHS, Tanzania, to support strategic policies for forest landscape protection and natural heritage sustainability. Using remotely sensed, Digital Elevation Model, and tourism location data, we performed the supervised classification of satellite images, Digital Elevation, Euclidean distance, and linear regression modeling to identify spatial determinants of forest degradation. Our key findings indicated that while spatial determinants vary with different locations, human (tourism) activities e.g., developments of campsites, picnics, tourist routes, the historical site, and attraction areas are associated with forest degradation in the southern parts of the site. In addition to human activities, natural factors such as low levels of elevation and degrees of slope are associated with forest degradation at the site. However, in the northwest and southwest of the site, high degrees of slope are associated with the degradation. Our findings showed that while bare land surface encroached the primary forest with about 2.88%, moorland vegetation encroached the primary forest with about 16.95%, indicating a large degradation of the primary forest with about 19.83% for the past four decades. The information provided in this study is crucial to support site managers and decision-makers in strategic policies and WHC implementations on forest protection for natural heritage sustainability.

Given the dynamics of climate events (hazards) and their linkages to human health, it is imperative to continuallly check the impacts of these events on the public health system. While efforts have been made to understand fluvial flood and COVID-19 vulnerability and impacts, substantial gaps about impacts of their simultaneous occurrence on densely-populated communities abound. This paper presents an assessement of the occurrence of fluvial flooding and its potential to undermine the management of the COVID-19 pandemic in Lagos State, Nigeria. This study applied the indicator-based risk assessment method to determine the pattern of COVID-19 risk in the study area. Flood hazard and health facilities datasets of Lagos State were also used to determine the flood extent and pattern of floodexposed health facilities in ArcGIS 10.7.1. Results revealed that Apapa, Eti Osa, Ibeju Lekki, Mushin, and Lagos Mainland local government areas (LGAs) were at a very high risk of COVID-19. Results also highlight six LGAs that should be prioritized in managing COVID-19 due to the exposure of the majority of its health facilities to flood. Far-reaching recommendations on the need to prioritize these floodexposed health facilities for COVID-19 risk reduction, humanitarian aid and prevention strategies is made. Also, future research in the study area should explore sustainable strategies to adapt to COVID-19 and flood events from an interdisciplinary perspective.

Digitalization is an essential element for the development of today’s society, in the context of actual geo-political challenges. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the process of digitalization, offering new perspectives on sustainable and inclusive development. From the point of view of the regional approach, digitalization can have an important impact on the level of territorial development and on the reduction of economic and social inequalities. This paper proposes to identify the relationship between a series of indicators specific to digitization and regional GDP, with the help of panel models. The objective of the research is to estimate the relationship between GDP and two indicators specific to digitalization: online commerce and broadband internet infrastructure, the level of the eight development regions in Romania. Dependency modelling, based on econometric equations, offers the possibility of highlighting the way in which the two indicators of the digital economy contribute to the growth of GDP per capita. This analysis aims to illustrate the fact that broadband technologies and the increase in the number of people using the Internet for commercial purposes can have a positive impact on the growth of the regional economy. The results of the analysis highlighted the direct relationship of the indicators between the three variables related to the digitalization process at the level of Romania’s regions and the strong influence of broadband internet and online trade on GDP per capita, proving that any growth among independent variables will lead to an increase amongst the dependent variables.

Traffic accident mortality (TAM) is a significant global problem and part of the sustainable development goals strategy. In Serbia, a decline in the number of deaths in traffic accidents is evident, but in certain time intervals and areas, the number of deaths is higher than in others. This paper adopted Joinpoint regression analysis and a geospatial approach to assessing spatial, temporal, and spatiotemporal mortality variability due to traffic accidents in Belgrade from 2016 to 2021. Results suggested statistically significant change during each year and spatial clustering of higher values of deaths in central Belgrade municipalities. Spatiotemporal analysis of traffic accidents data indicated a change in spatial clusters over time, pointing out two types of hotspots for traffic accident mortality–Sporadic - and New hotspots along the international highway, main, and local roads, in the broader area of the city. The main findings of this paper pointed to the areas in Belgrade where the population is more endangered in traffic compared to other areas. The results and conclusions can serve traffic managers and decision-makers as a basis for more detailed research and local-specific traffic safety strategies.