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This study aims to analyze the spatiotemporal land-use patterns in the forest-farmland ecotone of ecologically sensitive areas, together with their effects on carbon storage. Effective approaches were proposed to enhance carbon sequestration. The PLUS-InVEST model was also utilized along with the Geodetector. A systematic investigation was implemented to assess the impacts of spatiotemporal land-use patterns from 1990 to 2030 on the carbon storage of terrestrial ecosystems in the forest-farmland ecotone of the Greater Khingan Mountains. Additionally, the driving factors were determined responsible for the changes in carbon storage. The results were summarized as follows:1) The land-use types that experienced the largest area of transition were forests, grasslands, and croplands between 1990 and 2020. Notably, the highest conversion rates were observed in bare land (75.00%), water bodies (61.33%), and impervious surfaces (61.15%). The forest and grassland areas were expected to significantly increase under natural conservation and ecological protection scenarios by 2030. Furthermore, the areas of cropland and grassland were projected to increase under the cropland protection scenario, while the forest areas decreased greatly. The area of cropland declined in the urban development scenario, due to the urban expansion and land-use changes. 2) The total carbon storage in the study area exhibited a general downward trend, decreasing by 6.08×107 t over the past two decades. The largest decrease in carbon storage occurred in forests, followed by grasslands and croplands. In contrast, there was the increasing carbon storage in the impervious surfaces. The carbon storage in 2020 was compared to the projections for 2030. The total carbon storage for 2030 was projected as 1.555×109, 1.562×109, 1.562×109, and 1.561×109 t, respectively, under the four scenarios of cultivated land protection, natural development, ecological protection, urban development, respectively. All scenarios indicated an increase in the total carbon storage, except for the cropland protection. Different scenarios of land-use management varied greatly in the potential of overall carbon sequestration at regional. Natural conservation and ecological protection share the most promise to increase carbon storage. 3) The elevation, population density, and slope were identified as the primary driving factors behind the spatial differentiation of carbon storage in the study area. Among them, there was the most significant interaction between slope and population density, with an interaction strength of 0.74. There was a much stronger impact of multiple driving factors on carbon storage, compared with any single factor. Multifactorial approaches were also required to analyze the spatial dynamics of carbon storage. Therefore, the carbon dynamics of the ecosystem depended mainly on the land-use transitions in the ecotonal regions, like forest-farmland interfaces. The important implications were gained to develop the data-driven strategies of land management. Carbon sinks were also optimized to support biodiversity conservation. Overall, the significant role of targeted interventions was highlighted for the land-use changes in carbon storage and sequestration at regional scales. The findings can greatly contribute to ecosystem management and climate adaptation in the Greater Khingan Mountains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the background of "four waters and four determinations" scientific and quantitative assessment of water conservation capacity is the basis for ensuring high-quality social and economic development and effective protection of the ecological environment. As an important part of the "double evaluation" the evaluation of the importance of ecological protection plays a guiding role in the evaluation of agricultural production and urban construction. Based on the InVEST water yield module, the water conservation volume was obtained by using the terrain index, soil saturation water conductivity and flow velocity coefficient to obtain the water conservation volume, and the temporal and spatial evolution of water conservation in Lanzhou City of Gansu Province, China from 2000 to 2020 was quantitatively evaluated, and the impact of land use type change on it was discussed, and the importance level of water conservation function was divided. The results showed that: (1) From 2000 to 2020, except for the decrease of farmland area, the area of other land use types increased, and the increase of grassland was the most significant. (2) The spatial distribution of water conservation in Lanzhou City was "high-low distribution", and the average unit water conservation was 15.42 mm, and the total water conservation volume was 2.03x108 m³. From 2000 to 2020, the average unit water conservation and total amount in Lanzhou increased, and the increase rate gradually increased. (3) The total water conservation of different land use types in Lanzhou is as follows: grassland>farmland>woodland>impervious surface>bare land>shrubs. Among them, the average unit water conservation capacity of forest land was the largest, while the total water conservation of grassland was the largest. (4) From 2000 to 2020, the area of the generally important and relatively important areas of water conservation function in Lanzhou decreased, and the area of moderately important, highly important and extremely important areas increased. The evaluation and importance classification of water conservation functions can provide scientific reference and guidance for consolidating the existing achievements of returning farmland to forest and grassland, promoting the construction of ecological civilization, and promoting regional economic development in China's arid areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Vegetation plays an important role in ecological environment monitoring. Studying vegetation cover change can provide reference for regional ecological environment protection. The region of Altay in Xinjiang belongs to the ecological function zone of water conservation mountain grassland, with rich natural resources and beautiful scenery. However， the ecological environmental problems were gradually emerging under the national development strategies. Therefore, monitoring the dynamics of vegetation change in the area with multi-source remote sensing data is necessary to explore the relationship between the economic development and ecological environment protection. Methods: This paper uses multisource remote sensing long time series data with breaks for additive seasonal and trend, topographical position and geostatistical analysis methods to monitor the vegetation cover dynamics in Altay of Xinjiang, China during 2000—2019. Results: This paper processed large number of multisource remote sensing data along with human activity data and showed that during the study period, the number of vegetation breakpoints increased year by year from 2003 to 2009, and then gradually decreased after 2009. Meanwhile, seven types of vegetation breakpoint trends were detected, among them, the more number of breakpoints from degradation to growth type was identified, and the types of disturbance degradation and continuous degradation were less. From the interannual change curve, the dynamic change of vegetation coverage showed a trend of first decreasing and then increasing, that is, the vegetation coverage showed a degradation trend from 2000 to 2008 and a significant improvement trend from 2008 to 2019, and the degradation was greater than the improvement. Meanwhile, the east slope with an elevation of more than 900 m and a slope of more than 15° (from north to east and from south to east) is the dominant topographic location of vegetation degradation type, accounting for 62.4%. Conclusions: The protection of ecological environment in Altay of Xinjiang still needs to be further strengthened and effective protection measures should be taken. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Guoluo is a typical Tibetan plateau grassland pastoral culture, with the intangible cultural heritage item of distinctive ethnic characteristics. This paper introduces the practical ways of helping Guoluo's poverty alleviation by Shanghai from four aspects: teaching, fostering and researching the local intangible cultural heritage; revitalizing traditional handicraft; providing market platform and multi-party cooperation in order to create an "external support" for Guoluo's cultural development. Guoluo inheritors came to Shanghai University to participate in training, and opened a new chapter for colleges and universities to participate in poverty alleviation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, the runoff and sediment of the Yellow River middle reaches located in the Loess Plateau have changed significantly. Many scholars have carried out a lot of researches on the Wuding River, a typical basin of the Loess Plateau, but these researches are focused on the breakthrough of methods and ignore the comparative analysis among methods. This study compared the difference of four methods, i.e., double cumulative curve method, hydrological method, elastic coefficient method and soil and water conservation method, to conduct attributional comparative analysis of runoff and sediment change in the Wuding River Basin from 1957 to 2010. Both double cumulative curve method and hydrological method separate the influence of climate change and human activity by substituting the precipitation data in the research period into the precipitation-runoff and precipitation-sediment transport relationships established in the reference period, and the hydrological method takes into account the annual distribution of precipitation. The elastic coefficient method generates runoff and sediment elasticities to quantify the effects of climate change and human activities. The soil and water conservation method refers to determining the runoff and sediment reduction indicators of each measure under different conditions and periods in different geomorphic areas. The results of trend and change point analysis showed that the annual precipitation in the Wuding River Basin has not changed significantly. The annual potential evaporation, annual runoff and annual sediment transport decreased significantly and the year of change point was 1982, 1971 and 1971, respectively. The attributional comparative analysis of runoff showed that the results of hydrological method were close to those of elastic coefficient method, and the contribution rate of human activities of soil and water conservation method was relatively small, and the attributional comparative analysis of sediment transport showed that the results of soil and water conservation method were consistent with those of the other three methods. Attribution analysis results indicated human activities were the dominant factor of runoff and sediment change in the basin, and their effects on runoff and sediment change were increasing year by year. Among different human activities, irrigation water diversion and afforestation played a leading role in runoff change, and check dam and afforestation played a leading role in sediment transport change. The full up or failure of check dam built in the 1970s and 1980s would largely weaken the runoff and sediment reduction benefits of water conservancy and soil conservation measures in the short term. In the long term, the impact of ecological construction, such as returning cultivated land to forestland or grassland, on runoff and sediment transport will gradually play a major role. Therefore, in the future, the governance of the Wuding River Basin should continue to implement the policy of conversion of cropland to forest and grassland, and strengthen the layout optimization and post-maintenance of engineering measures such as check dam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]