An estimated 804,000 suicide deaths occurred in 2012, representing an annual global age-standardized suicide ratio of 11.4 per 100,000 populations. Suicide ratios are not distributed evenly across people or places, varying by income level, gender, and age. Changes in suicide ratios over time...

A projection of future carbon emission is a vital input in influencing climate change for the world as well as for individual country and region. We provide alternative projections of future carbon dioxide emission and compare our projections with those from the International Energy Outlook...

Terrestrial protected areas are an important tool for biodiversity conservation. Recent expansion of terrestrial projection areas is such that fifty countries have already reached or exceeded the 17% target to be realized by 2020. This research examines whether countries with low level of...

Under a wide variation of overfished stocks by countries and regions, this research examines whether regions and countries with low overfished ratios are increasing their fishing output to catch-up to regions and countries with higher overfished ratios. For the total group of 131 countries, the...

Two measures of fine particulate matter, PM2.5 exposure and PM2.5 exceedance are used to analyze convergence patterns of 212 and 108 countries during the period of 2000 to 2014. For PM2.5 exposure, sigma index diverges at the annual rate of 1.07%, while gamma index converges at -0.5% rate. For...

Since 1990, 2.1 billion people in the world gained access to improved sanitation. However, 2.4 billion people still do not use a basic toilet. We examine whether the country differences in the sanitation index existing in 1990 has been reduced and if so, how fast. We deploy the convergence...

The Millennium Development Goals by the United Nations included a global target for Improved Water Source to reach 88% of global population by 2015. By 2010, the global target was reached. However, there are still millions of people lacking the improved access to drinking water. We propose the...