What determines the success and failure of environmental crowdfunding?

Online crowdfunding can help address the perennial financial shortfalls in environmental conservation and management. Although many online crowdfunding campaigns fail to collect any funds due to not achieving their targets, little is known about what drives success. To address this knowledge gap, we applied a mixed-methods approach to data from 473 successful and failed campaigns hosted on the online crowdfunding platform Readyfor. We found that fundraising performance varied by topic, with campaigns on pet animal management outperforming those focussed on landscape management and sustainable use. We also found that marketing strategies associated with online findability and increased reach through social networks, increased fundraising success. However, the existence of other environmental campaigns running simultaneously, reduced the chance of success, which implies that the selecting popular topics does not always increase the likelihood of success due to increased competition. Wider applications of marketing could enhance the ability of environmental crowdfunding campaigns to raise funds

Reduced mortality during the COVID-19 outbreak in Japan, 2020: a two-stage interrupted time-series design.

BACKGROUND: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) continues to be a major global health burden. This study aims to estimate the all-cause excess mortality occurring in the COVID-19 outbreak in Japan, 2020, by sex and age group. METHODS: Daily time series of mortality for the period January 2015-December 2020 in all 47 prefectures of Japan were obtained from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan. A two-stage interrupted time-series design was used to calculate excess mortality. In the first stage, we estimated excess mortality by prefecture using quasi-Poisson regression models in combination with distributed lag non-linear models, adjusting for seasonal and long-term variations, weather conditions and influenza activity. In the second stage, we used a random-effects multivariate meta-analysis to synthesize prefecture-specific estimates at the nationwide level. RESULTS: In 2020, we estimated an all-cause excess mortality of -20 982 deaths [95% empirical confidence intervals (eCI): -38 367 to -5472] in Japan, which corresponded to a percentage excess of -1.7% (95% eCI: -3.1 to -0.5) relative to the expected value. Reduced deaths were observed for both sexes and in all age groups except those aged <60 and 70-79 years. CONCLUSIONS: All-cause mortality during the COVID-19 outbreak in Japan in 2020 was decreased compared with a historical baseline. Further evaluation of cause-specific excess mortality is warranted

uribo/jpmesh: CRAN Version 1.1.3

Fix R version test

Understanding spatial-temporal changes in ecosystem services using mobile phone network data

Climate change is predicted to have substantial impacts on ecosystem services [1]. In particular, seasonal outdoor recreation at coastal and mountain areas can be degraded and threatened. So far, many valuation studies have assessed recreational services over the world; however, the spatial and temporal limits of data prevented estimation of the reliable values of seasonal recreation services. Recently, to resolve these challenges in the context of ecosystem services, there is a growing body of literature on applications of social media data and the platforms, such as Twitter, Instagram, and Flickr [2, 3]; although few studies have evaluated the services in monetary terms. The travel cost model, which is one of the traditional valuation methods, using mobile phone network data was applied to understand recreational ecosystem services at coastal and mountain areas in Japan. The data, which called Mobile Spatial Statistics (MSS), is derived from operational data of a mobile phone network on an hourly basis and non-self reported. Thus, to protect the mobile phone users&#039; privacy, mesh aggregation has been implemented on the data by the company. Our findings from the travel cost model with the unique mobile phone data demonstrated the ecosystem service values at coastal and mountain areas. We found the spatial-temporal differences in the estimated values; especially, the change on a daily basis in each recreational site implied the seasonal changes of ecosystem services associated with changes in temporal environmental conditions and qualities. Although our unique data enabled us to estimate the value by 500m grid cell, still it was difficult to identify what kinds of recreational activities were performed and whether or not the activities have negative impacts on biodiversity. Further studies are recommended to integrate other social media data with photos and texts into our approach to remedy these issues. Development of applications of new technologies and data sources into conservation science will enhance understanding ecosystem services and nature-human relationships and help decision making under climate change. References [1] Mooney, H., Larigauderie, A., Cesario, M., Elmquist, T., Hoegh-Guldberg, O., Lavorel, S., Mace, G.M., Palmer, M., Scholes, R., Yahara, T., 2009. Biodiversity, climate change, and ecosystem services. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 1, 46-54. [2] Tenkanen, H., Di Minin, E., Heikinheimo, V., Hausmann, A., Herbst, M., Kajala, L., Toivonen, T., 2017. Instagram, Flickr, or Twitter: Assessing the usability of social media data for visitor monitoring in protected areas. Sci Rep 7, 17615. [3] van Zanten, B.T., Van Berkel, D.B., Meentemeyer, R.K., Smith, J.W., Tieskens, K.F., Verburg, P.H., 2016. Continental-scale quantification of landscape values using social media data. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 113, 12974-12979.peerReviewe

Mobile phone network data reveal nationwide economic value of coastal tourism under climate change

The technology-driven application of big data is expected to assist policymaking towards sustainable development; however, the relevant literature has not addressed human welfare under climate change, which limits the understanding of climate change impacts on human societies. We present the first application of unique mobile phone network data to evaluate the current nation-wide human welfare of coastal tourism at Japanese beaches and project the value change using the four climate change scenarios. The results show that the projected national economic value loss rates are more significant than the projected national physical beach loss rates. Our findings demonstrate regional differences in recreational values: most southern beaches with larger current values would disappear, while the current small values of the northern beaches would remain. These changes imply that the ranks of the beaches, based on economic values, would enable policymakers to discuss management priorities under climate change