China's successful agriculture development has resulted in public concerned environmental problems. However, continuous and detailed data about Chinese agricultural non-point source pollution (ANPSP) loads are lacking. To assess and analyze Chinese ANPSP loads from 1978 to 2017, an inventory analysis was performed, and a socioeconomic and spatiotemporal analysis in the scale of provinces was conducted. The results showed that the pollution loads of chemical oxygen demand (COD), total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) increased by 91.0%, 196.2% and 244.1%, respectively, and their variation underwent a free development stage, reform promotion stage, market regulation stage and policy incentive stage. The results of the pollution source analysis showed that over the past 40 years, the total percent contribution to COD by livestock and poultry breeding (LPB) and rural household waste (RHW) accounted for 83.1%-96.6%, the total percent contribution to TN by mineral fertilizers (MF) and LPB accounted for 72.3%-80.8%, and the total percent contribution to TP by LPB, RHW and MF accounted for 69.1%-88.6%. In addition, Shandong, Guangdong, Sichuan, and Henan were the top producers of ANPSP loads, and their COD, TN, and TP loads accounted for approximately 32%, 30%, and 35% of the national totals, respectively. The discharge intensity of COD, TN and TP decreased by 79.2%, 67.8%, and 62.6%, respectively. The discharge intensity exhibited a phasic feature that aligned with the national economic plan in the temporal scale and was closely related to the agricultural conditions in the spatial scale. The increasing growth of the world's population has established an unprecedented pressure in the availability of fresh water resources, with food production systems consuming over 70% of the world's fresh water withdrawals. Other pressures include climate change effects and the increasing number of semi-arid regions. The present challenges are therefore the maintenance of high production rates with fewer resources, especially in regions where water is becoming less accessible. In this study, we have tested the effect of sub-surface irrigation and silicon fertilization in maize growth with and without water limitation. These solutions have been suggested as effective in drought conditions but an overall study of their effects on the soil water balance and root length density is lacking. We have conducted a pot experiment with maize for 101 days where measurements in soil water content and root length were taken. Also, Hydrus 2-D was used to simulate the root water uptake and calculate the water balance. Results show that both sub-surface irrigation and silicon fertilization increase the root system by 21% and 34% respectively in water stress situation. 4-Hydroxynonenal in vitro Also, in the case of no water stress, silicon fertilization still induces an increase of 11% in the root development, showing that this solution has positive effects even when the crop is not hydrologically limited. Indeed the root water uptake was higher for the silicon treatment when no water limitation was present (71.6 L), compared to the sub-surface irrigation (62.5 L) and the control (62.3 L). While sub-surface irrigation generally decreased evaporation, the silicon treatment lowered drainage by promoting a better and more efficient root water uptake. Alginate-like exopolymers (ALE) are present in the extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) of biological sludge such as aerobic granular sludge (AGS). The recovery of ALE from excess sludge produced by wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) is a relevant approach for the recovery of valuable products of industrial interest. However, little is known about dynamics of ALE content in sludge and associated factors. Thus, this study aimed at assessing the dynamics of EPS and ALE in terms of content, some chemical properties and influencing environmental factors along granulation in a sequencing batch reactor treating municipal wastewater. Results indicated that the EPS content was not correlated with the development of AGS, while the ALE content was higher, more stable and steadily increased after granulation achievement. Overall, 236 ± 27 mg VSALE/g VSsludge was recovered from AGS and 187 ± 94 mg VSALE/g VSsludge from flocs. However, the lower ALE content in flocs may be compensated by the higher sludge production rate in activated sludge systems. Principal component analysis (PCA) revealed that ALE content positively correlates with the nutrient and organic substrate conversion, and with the fraction of large AGS. Microbial analyses indicated that a stable microbial community composition was associated with a higher and more stable ALE content. ALE recovered from both flocs and AGS was endowed with hydrogel property, and no clear difference in their elemental composition and functional groups was observed. Therefore, our study provides insights about quantitative and qualitative aspects of ALE which are helpful for the improvement of waste biological sludge valorization. Excitation-emission matrix (EEM) fluorescence spectroscopy has been applied to characterize several urban and industrial wastewaters (effluents from different types of industries brewery, winery, dairy, biscuit, tinned fish industry, slaughterhouse, pulp mill, textile dyeing and landfill leachates), searching for specific fluorescence fingerprints. Tryptophan protein-like peaks (T1 and T2) are the predominant fluorescence in urban and food industry wastewaters (brewery, winery, dairy/milk, biscuit and fish farm industries) but no special fingerprint has been found to discriminate among them. Protein-like fluorescence also dominates the spectra of meat/fish industries (effluents from a tinned fish industry and a slaughterhouse), but in this case tyrosine protein-like peaks (B1 and B2) also appear in the spectra in addition to tryptophan-like peaks. This fact might constitute a specific feature to differentiate these wastewaters from others, since the appearance of peaks B is quite uncommon in wastewaters. The eded to check these preliminary results. This paper aims to examine the worldwide interactions between income inequality and carbon emissions, and the nonlinear threshold roles of globalization, income inequality and economic growth. To fulfill this task, we propose a dynamic panel threshold model with cross-sectional dependence, based on a balance panel data of 92 countries over the period 1991-2015. The results suggest the presence of nonlinear effects of threshold variables, which have asymmetric impacts on the negative relationships between income inequality and carbon emissions. Further, we find that the promotion of globalization significantly contributes to reduce the effect of income unfairness improvement on the increase of carbon emissions, and this similar effect could also be achieved through shrinking income inequality per se and spurring economic growth. We therefore suggest the stakeholders keep working on pushing the reinforced trend of globalization when weighting the trade-offs between income inequality alleviation and carbon emission mitigation.