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Scholars have turned their attention to the ecological protection and high-quality development of China's Yellow River Basin in recent years. The basin is a major agricultural production area in China, hence investigating agricultural carbon emission reduction strategies in the basin is crucial. The research object in this article is the agricultural departments of China's nine provinces in the Yellow River Basin from 2005 to 2018. Agricultural carbon emissions are measured using agricultural land usage, rice planting, crop planting, straw burning, and livestock breeding as agricultural carbon sources. In addition, the GTWR model is used to examine the spatiotemporal aspects of the impact of five factors on agricultural carbon emissions in this paper. The findings reveal that the five factors have varying degrees and directions of influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the 30-province panel data in China during 2005-2018, this paper uses the DEA-SBM model and DEA-Malmquist model to measure rural financial efficiency and agricultural technological progress respectively and then uses the mediating effect model to analyze the linear influence. The results show that rural financial efficiency and agricultural technological progress both can inhibit agricultural carbon emissions, while agricultural technological progress plays a mediating role when rural financial efficiency influences agricultural carbon emissions. What's more, this paper uses the threshold effect model to analyze the non-linear influence. The findings reveal that when rural financial efficiency improves, the effects of rural financial efficiency and agricultural technology advances on agricultural carbon emissions shift from promoter to inhibitor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past 40 years after China adopted the reform and open-up policy, China’s expediting industries spatial agglomeration has resulted in severe damage to the environment. In China, the one whether the pollution haven hypothesis (PHH) is true or not is the hot issue under the research of academic circles. By establishing the mechanism model of industries spatial agglomeration and environmental pollution in this paper, we discovered upon our empirical study that China’s industrial spatial agglomeration process had apparent threshold characteristics for environmental pollution, those direct investment and scientific innovation of foreign merchants apparently improved environmental pollution, so PHH is not true in China and such conclusion provides empirical support for China’s industrial agglomeration and environmental policymaking. At the end of the paper, the policy proposals for improving environmental pollution in future are made, which have important significance for China’s high-quality economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beijing is facing an increasing threat from environmental problems. Since the environment is a public resource, waste emissions from industries are non-competitive and non-exclusive, which indicates that there are competition relationships among industries in Beijing. In order to investigate these relationships in quantity, this paper employs a 2-mode network method to construct a competition network of Beijing's industries using data for 2011 and then analyses the competition network using network indices. Five kinds of wastes are considered: wastewater, waste gas, common solid waste, waste dust and hazardous emissions. Our main findings include: the manufacture of raw chemical materials and chemical products and the manufacture of non-metallic mineral products are under intense emission competition in Beijing. Industries are divided into three groups by waste emission. Two industries mainly discharge hazardous waste; six industries mainly discharge wastewater; and the remaining 12 industries discharge waste dust, common solid waste and waste gas. These relationships should be considered in industrial planning, and industries that discharge similar waste types should not be located close together. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Estimating carbon emissions and assessing their contribution are critical steps toward China's objective of reaching a "carbon peak" in 2030 and "carbon neutrality" in 2060. This paper selects relevant statistical data on carbon emissions from 2000 to 2018, combines the emission coefficient method and the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index model (LMDI) to calculate carbon emissions, and analyses the driving force of carbon emission growth using Henan Province as a case study. Based on the partial least squares regression analysis model (PLS), the contributions of inter-provincial factors of carbon emission are analyzed. Finally, a county-level downscaling estimation model of carbon emission is further formulated to analyze the temporal and spatial distribution of carbon emissions and their evolution. The research results show that: 1) The effect of energy intensity is responsible for 82 percent of the increase in carbon emissions, whereas the effect of industrial structure is responsible for -8 percent of the increase in carbon emissions. 2) The proportion of secondary industry and energy intensity, which are 1.64 and 0.82, respectively, have the most evident explanatory effect on total carbon emissions; 3). Carbon emissions vary widely among counties, with high emissions in the central and northern regions and low emissions in the southern. However, their carbon emissions have constantly decreased over time. 4) The number of high-emission counties, their carbon emissions, and the degree of their discrepancies are gradually reduced. The findings serve as a foundation for relevant agencies to gain a macro-level understanding of the industrial landscape and to investigate the feasibility of carbon emission reduction programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon emissions in agricultural production activities have become an important source of accelerating climate warming. At present, low-carbon agriculture is not only an important means to mitigate climate warming, but also a necessary process of transformation from traditional agriculture to modern agriculture. Therefore, to achieve the sustainable development of agriculture in China’s Western Taiwan Straits Economic Zone (WTS Economic Zone), the governments should vigorously promote the upgrading and realize the development of low-carbon agriculture. By adopting the latest emission coefficients and the ordered weighted averaging (OWA) aggregation operator, this paper selected agricultural land use, rice paddies, crop production, livestock manure storage and livestock enteric fermentation as the five carbon emission sources, and measured agricultural carbon emissions in the WTS Economic Zone from 2010 to 2017. Thus, from the time perspective, the average agricultural carbon emissions in the WTS Economic Zone showed a fluctuating downward trend, from 762.64 × 10³ tonnes in 2010 to 710.02 × 10³ tonnes in 2017. From the spatial perspective, total agricultural carbon emissions among regions are quite different. To further clarify the factors affecting agricultural carbon emissions in the WTS Economic Zone, by applying the geographically and temporally weighted regression (GTWR) model, this paper selected the research and development intensity, the added value of agriculture, the proportion of agricultural labour force, the overall level of urbanization, per capita disposable income of rural residents and per capita arable land areas as the influencing factors, and then measured the direction and degree of the influences on agricultural carbon emissions in different temporal-spatial backgrounds. The results showed that the added value of agriculture, the proportion of agricultural labour force and per capita arable land areas had positive influences on agricultural carbon emissions, while the research and development intensity, the overall level of urbanization and per capita disposable income of rural residents had negative impacts. Although agricultural carbon emissions in the WTS Economic Zone have decreased in recent years, further measures can be taken to effectively reduce agricultural carbon emissions, and ultimately promote the development of lowcarbon agriculture according to the results of this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humans have paid a lot of attention to environmental geological challenges in recent years. Landslides, being one of the most prevalent geological disasters, are characterized by their suddenness and destructiveness. Southwest China is prone to landslides and debris flows due to its unique geological structure. This paper uses landslides in southwest China as an example, focusing on research on landslide initiation mechanisms and outlining modern landslide monitoring devices and prediction models. Landslides are caused by external variables such as persistent precipitation, groundwater movement, and significant seismic activity, as well as interior reasons such as fine particle rearrangement and the action of positive pore water. The reduction of the friction coefficient of the shear surface, which is induced by the increase of the shear rate, the supercritical carbon dioxide and superheated steam of the shear zone, and the mineral recrystallization process on the shear surface, all have an important impact on reducing the friction coefficient of the shear surface, is a key factor in the occurrence of highspeed remote landslides. Real-time landslide monitoring using space-air-ground and acoustic emission technology, as well as the creation of machine learning-based forecast models, have aided in the research of landslide development and early warning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the open-pit coal mine in semi-arid grassland was taken as the research object. The water samples of the open-pit coal mine and its surrounding areas were collected and the hydrochemical parameters were detected. The temporal and spatial distribution characteristics of the parameters such as pH, electrical conductivity, and dissolved oxygen in the groundwater were studied. The results showed that the groundwater in the study area was alkaline and brackish water. Climate factors might have a certain impact on the pH, conductivity, and dissolved oxygen of groundwater. The pH value of groundwater in the mining area was higher than that in the surrounding pastoral area, while the conductivity value of the mining area was between the pastoral area in the west and the Xilin river area in the east. The parameters of pH, conductivity and total dissolved solids of the four monitoring wells around the mining area showed a slow change or stable phenomenon in the vertical direction with the increase of groundwater depth. This study is of great significance to understand the characteristics of groundwater chemistry in mining areas and the rational development and utilization of groundwater resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the reform and opening up, with the progress of science and technology, China's economy developed rapidly, but the attendant environmental problems are becoming increasingly serious, environmental efficiency evaluation has been paid more and more attention in China. This paper used the SBM model to measure the environmental efficiency of the mainland of China's 30 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities from 2000 to 2010 and analysed the overall situation of the industrial environment efficiency during the 10th and the 11th five-year plan in China. The results show that the overall industrial environmental efficiency of China is low, but it shows a rising trend, and there is a big gap between provinces and regions. At the same time, this paper used the Moran's I index to analyse the spatial correlation of the environmental efficiency. The results show that the industrial environmental efficiency agglomerate in the whole country and it has an obvious spatial autocorrelation. High-high environmental efficiency agglomeration area most distribute in the eastern zone, and low-low environmental efficiency agglomeration area is mainly distributed in the western zone, the location distribution showed significant differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surface water is the most important and common water resource on earth. Accurate and effective mapping and detecting of surface water have been made possible by remote sensing technology, highresolution satellite data, playing an important role in surface water monitoring and mapping, which has become the current hot research for water information extraction in recent decades. Therefore, in this paper, we tested and analysed four models to extract water bodies using China's GF-2 HD satellite (GF- 2) image, including Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI), Modified Shadow Water Index (MSWI), Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Object-Oriented Method (OOM). The results showed applying water extraction models can map surface water with an overall accuracy of 0.8935, 0.9256, 0.9467 and 0.9357, respectively. SVM owns the highest overall accuracy value of 0.9467, followed by OOM. SVM performed significantly better at surface water extraction with kappa coefficients improved by 9.00%, 5.00%, and 2.00%, respectively, which yielded the best results and used to map surfaces water bodies in the study region, while index methods (NDWI and MSWI) are mostly classified into the water and non-water information based on a threshold value, with higher total omission and commission errors at 12.45%, 25.64%, 6.38% and12.87%, respectively. Therefore, we proposed SVM as the best algorithm to identify water body and effectively detect surface water from the GF-2 image. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The plant is an important component of the riparian ecosystem, which could reflect both the environmental and functional characteristics of the riparian zone. Studies on species composition, diversity, community structure, distribution pattern, and adaptation strategies of plant communities in the riparian zone of the Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR) will help to explore the maintaining mechanism of the plant communities' ecological function under severe water-level fluctuation. The paper reviewed the plant community characteristics, functional traits as well as their eco-physiological responses and environmental adaptations in this special ecological zone. Based on this, future research orientations in this field were also prospected, which may focus on the maintenance mechanism of the plant community, suitable plants selection and their adaptation mechanism, the relationship between plant functional traits and ecosystem functions, plant niche in the riparian zone, and the connectivity of riparian zone to the surrounding environment. The results can promote the correlational research on plant communities in the riparian zone and deepen the understanding of ecosystem services the riparian ecotone provides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The South-to-North Water Diversion Project in China is an important measure to promote the ecological civilization construction in the receiving areas. Since the operation of the east and middle routes, the comprehensive benefits are more and more remarkable. It is very significant to quantitatively evaluate the comprehensive benefits of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project. The idea of quantitative evaluation by the improved degree of the carrying capacity of regional water environment after water diversion is put forward in this paper. On the basis, combining with variable fuzzy set and cloud theory, a new comprehensive assessment model is established. According to the evaluation index system of water environmental carrying capacity and the index values of research area, the linear difference function value is generated randomly by triangular forward cloud generator, and then the variable fuzzy comprehensive evaluation is carried out. Taking Haihe River Basin and Beijing City as typical research areas respectively, the comprehensive benefits of water supply from the diversion project in 2030 are analysed. The comprehensive evaluation method with variable cloud model considers both “good” and “bad” aspects and considers both randomness and fuzziness. Results show that the model is feasible and efficient. It is worth popularizing and applying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zhijin county is one of the areas with fragile geological environment and frequent natural disasters in China. In recent years, with the intensification of human activities, the geological environment has been continuously damaged, causing geological disasters of different scales and serious life threats and property losses to people. Therefore, the purpose of introducing this mathematical model is to make the data more intelligent and professional by combining the data of geological disasters in mathematics. Based on the geological disaster monitoring, warning and decision support system of Guizhou province, this paper takes Zhijin county as the research object and uses Oracle database to manage the data by building and designing data structure and data model. The results show that geological hazard assessment can not only provide reliable data for analysis and research, but also provide reference value for similar database construction: (1) to construct spatial data model to realize effective correlation between spatial data and business data. (2) spatial entity objects have the characteristics of multi-dimension and polysemy, and "relational-object" mathematical modelling is adopted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main pollution components of coke oven flue gas are SO2 and NOx. The SO2 and NOx not only harm human health, but also cause serious environmental pollution. Combined with the new type of denitration catalyst, magnesium flue gas desulphurization process and radial heat pipe waste, heat boiler and other core patented technologies, this paper creatively put forward the integrated technology of coke oven flue gas desulphurization, denitration, and waste heat recovery and utilization. This method can fundamentally solve the problems of environmental pollution caused by coke oven flue gas emission and waste heat recovery and utilization in China. The denitration efficiency is always stable above 98%, which reflects the super-high denitration efficiency of catalyst. It not only has the remarkable economic efficiency, but also has huge social efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ecological environment is the basic natural condition related to human survival and development. Protecting and improving the ecological environment is the basis for ensuring social and economic sustainable development and a virtuous cycle of water resources, especially coal mining areas. This paper hopes to understand and master all kinds of calculation methods for the discharge of ecological flow in water conservancy and hydropower projects at home and abroad, analyse the advantages and disadvantages and application scope of various methods, and propose a more reasonable quantitative calculation method of ecological flow in combination with typical water conservancy and hydropower engineering research. The calculations show that most of the aquatic organisms have excellent habitat conditions when the river's inner diameter flow is 60% of the average annual river flow. It is hoped that it will play a reference role for other similar water conservancy and hydropower projects in China, realize the coordination of water resources development and river ecological protection, implement ecological water conservancy and ecological hydropower model, and solve the ecological problems that restrict the development of water conservancy and hydropower in China to a certain extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The assessment of forest site quality at early stages of stand development is very essential for scientific afforestation and forest management. In order to enhance the accuracy of the existing models, a new site quality assessment model based on Genetic Algorithm-Radial Basis Function (GA-RBF) was proposed to predict site index (stand dominant height). Data used in this study came from 980 permanent sample plots for Chinese fir (Cunninghamia lanceolata) plantations in Fujian Province, China, which were randomly divided into the training dataset (786 plots) and the testing dataset (194 plots) with a ratio of 8:2. In this paper, the GA-RBF was compared with the radial basis function (RBF) and the traditional Quantitative Theory I (QT-I) method. The results indicated that the predicted accuracy was significantly increased by using the GA-RBF model. Furthermore, we used the existing site-specific site index table of Chinese fir to test the results of the GA-RBF and the agreement was 73.2%. Therefore, we recommend the GA-RBF for assessing site quality of afforestation land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of promoting high-quality development in the Yellow River Basin (YRB) of China, urgent action is needed to achieve the “Dual Carbon” goal through energy savings, emission reductions, and industrial upgrading. This study measures carbon emissions from eight types of energy consumption across 43 industries from 2000 to 2019. Using the KayaLMDI model, factors affecting carbon emissions are analyzed, and the relationship between industrial structure and carbon emissions is explored through the coefficient of variation (CV). The findings reveal that coal consumption remains significantly higher than other energy sources, and the effect of energy structure adjustment on carbon emission reduction is limited compared to the impact of energy consumption increase on carbon emission growth. Moreover, the economic output effect is identified as the primary driving factor of carbon emissions, while energy utilization rate is crucial in achieving energy savings and emission reductions. Finally, the CV of carbon emissions across 43 industries is increasing. Based on these results, we suggest several policy recommendations, including prioritizing ecological concerns, developing comprehensive and scientifically sound plans, optimizing energy consumption structure, improving energy utilization efficiency, and adjusting industrial structure to promote sustainable development in the YRB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Residents in arid regions of northwest China, where dust storms are more common, are continually exposed to air pollution particularly fine particles of PM2.5 and PM10, causing health hazards to residents. Urban greening species have a strong dust retention capacity which is also available in arid conditions and should be chosen to reduce the impact of air pollution on people and the urban environment. In this paper, three common tree species in four different functional areas: Transportation area (TA), Residential area (RA), Industrial area (IA), and Clean area (CA) of Aksu City were selected to measure their foliar dust to select the matching trees for appropriate sites. The dust particle size distribution for PM2.5 and PM10 was analyzed to explore the particle size difference between foliar dust and natural landing dust. The largest particle size was recorded in IA (168.56 µm), while the smallest was found in CA (43.25 µm). Furthermore, Salix babylonica (S. babylonica) absorbed the highest PM2.5 and PM10, 0.15% and 1.39% respectively; while Ulmus densa (U. densa) absorbed the least PM2.5 and PM10, 0.08% and 0.37%. Platanus acerifolia (P. acerifolia) foliar dust particle density was the highest, and has stable dust retention capacity, while, S. babylonica foliar dust particulate density is the lowest under the same conditions (height/location, pollution exposition, weather). Our findings concluded that the average values of dust diameters in the four areas differed significantly. It is concluded that P. acerifolia is the best performer in removing dust in different functional urban areas and S. babylonica was more suitable for CA because of having the capacity to remove fine particle matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking the black soil of northeastern cold land as the research object, this paper adopts the threefactor quadratic saturation D311 optimal design scheme, uses static black box-gas chromatography to analyse the irrigation season, nitrogen fertilizer and straw biochar to the impact of greenhouse gas emissions for N2O growing season in the northeast cold paddy field. This paper also studies the optimal water and fertilizer application scheme for N2O control. The results show that the effects of three factors on N2O emissions are as follows: nitrogen fertilizer > biochar > water. The irrigation and biochar have an inhibitory effect on N2O emissions, while nitrogen fertilizer has a promoting effect on N2O emissions. The performance is as follows: water + nitrogen fertilizer can promote the emission of N2O; water + biochar can inhibit the emission of N2O; nitrogen fertilizer + biochar can promote the emission of N2O. Combined with the yield, the integrated water and biochar optimization schemes, when controlling the increase of N2O growth season in paddy fields to not exceed 10% are as follows: The amount of irrigation is 4252~5531 kg/hm²; the nitrogen application rate is 103.30~117.35 kg/hm²; and the amount of biochar is 15.12~24.42 t/hm². [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As one of the basic elements of the ecosystem and natural environment, the soil is closely related to human life. However, the problem of soil environment pollution is becoming more and more serious, which needs to be solved urgently. It will provide a reference for solving the problem of soil environment pollution if a suitable method can be found to evaluate the degree of soil environment pollution. The degree of soil environment pollution belongs to the fuzzy concept. It is a fuzzy pattern recognition problem to evaluate the degree of soil environment pollution according to the soil environment level standard value. The fuzzy pattern recognition method of soil environment pollution assessment makes full use of the fuzzy characteristics existing in soil environment assessment, considers the common influence of the weight of evaluation factors and the index value, and also considers the correlation between indexes and the similarity of index characteristics of different sampling points, therefore, the interference of some man-made certain factors is concealed. The model was applied to the soil sampling point in Wudi County of Shandong Province in the Yellow River basin of China. The results showed that the evaluation of soil environment pollution by this method accorded with the actual situation and can provide a basis for ensuring the stability of soil ecological environment, improving the quality of cultivated land, and improving regional ecological conditions. At the same time, in view of the current problem of soil environment pollution, the paper calls on human beings to pay attention to environmental protection and be responsible for their own safety and also proposes four aspects of treatment schemes and measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies and analyses the formation and evolution of the urban spatial pattern of Harbin, a waterfront city in northern China. Considering the history and culture of this city, as well as the impetus of modern urbanization, and performing Pearson's correlation analysis it is concluded that the modelled social vulnerability score and the flood damage in certain periods are highly correlated. The results indicate, 1. that the change of spatial pattern and the social vulnerability to disasters are in a high coupling relationship, 2) that the social vulnerability is closely related to the terrain of the disaster source, and the urban civilians, handicraftsmen and businessmen in Daoli District and Daowai District of the first stage of terrain are the population with the highest social vulnerability, and 3) that there is no apparently time-varying change of socially vulnerable groups. This paper innovates to combine the research on the dynamic change of the urban spatial pattern and the research on social vulnerability, in order to supplement and perfect the assessment system for social vulnerability influencing factors, and to provide reference for the establishment of the social policy as relevant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plant trait patterns contribute to understanding the process of community assembly. Using a traitbased method, recent studies have found that, both the spatial component and abiotic environment filtering drives community structuring. However, the community abiotic environment may be influenced by overstory community and species composition, and it is not enough to disentangle the environment filters only considering abiotic factors. In this paper, leaf size and SLA of 11 understory species were measured, and variation portioning was used to explore the explanation power of spatial process, three topographic variables and seven biotic factors describing the overstory community. The results indicated spatial structure, topography and overstory characters contribute to the leaf variation, and biotic environment have significant effects on leaf trait variations. We concluded that community structure and species composition play important roles in community trait patterns, and biotic filtering should be considered in future trait-based studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to study structural differences and anti-erodibility properties of purple and loess soils in hilly terrains of southern and northern China. Yoder's method and Le Bissonnais method were used to determine the distribution of soil particle sizes, mean weight diameter (MWD), and geometric mean diameter (GMD). The sequences of water-stable aggregates in different sizes were as follows: On one hand, the sequence of purple soil aggregates was W2-5mm>W0.25-0.5mm>W0.5-1mm>W0-0.053mm>W0.053-0.25mm>W1-2mm>W>5mm. On the other hand, the sequence of the loess soil was W0-0.053mm>W0.053-0.5mm>W0.25-0.5mm>W0.5-1mm>W2-5mm>W1-2mm>W>5mm. Three LB treatments were carried out and the results were as follows: MWD and GMD of soil aggregates in the loess soil presented the trend of slow wetting (SW)>wetting stirring (WS)>fast wetting (FW), while those in the purple soil were WS>SW>FW. Under SW treatment, purple soil had higher erodibility factor (K) than loess soil, close to the result of Yoder's method. Yet under WS and FW treatments, K values of purple soil were much lower than that of loess soil (P<0.05). A significant difference in K, MWD, GMD, and soil organic matter (SOM) values was found between purple soil and loess soil (P<0.05). Slope positions greatly influence MWD, GMD, SOM content for the two soils (P<0.01), and the interaction between soil type and slope position showed an extremely significant positive correlation to MWD and GMD (P<0.01). Our study indicates that, under different breakdown mechanisms, purple soil has a more stable structure and higher anti-erodibility than loess soil. The results of this study will provide a theoretical basis for further understanding of the erosion mechanism of the main soils in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The source region of the Yellow River, located in the north-eastern edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, is an important water conservation region and ecological barrier of the Yellow River. In this paper, based on remote sensing technology, multi-period Landsat remote sensing images in the source region were taken as the main information source. With the assistance of field investigation, we monitored the spatial and temporal changes of desertification in the source region from 2000 to 2019. The results show that the area of desertification in the source region has accounted for 9.36% of the total area, of which the light desertification land is the major portion. The desertification is mainly distributed between the southern margin of Madoi Valley basin and the northern margin of Heihe Valley basin, and is distributed on the river valleys, lakesides, ancient rivers and piedmont proluvial fan, showing the form of patches, sheets and belts. The growth rate of desertification in the source region was 87.47% from 2000 to 2010. With a high growth rate, the process of desertification was represented by the rapid spread of desertification. From 2010 to 2019, the growth rate of desertification was 37.32%, which was relatively slow. But the moderate desertification land maintained a straight linear growth trend, showing an increasing trend of desertification degree. Through the analysis of the driving factors of desertification in the source region of the Yellow River, this paper argues that the special geographical location, climatic factors, rodent damages and human activities are the main causes of desertification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present, the resource utilization of solid waste in China is facing prominent problems such as high production intensity, insufficient utilization, and low added value of products. The preparation of biomass composites from biomass solid waste and plastic solid waste reduces not only environmental pollution and energy consumption but also promotes the high-value utilization of solid waste. So, the characterization and preparation experiments of samples with two different biomass are carried out. The wheat straw fiber and corn straw fiber were added into the bio-asphalt mixture with the content of 0.1%, 0.2%, 0.3%, and 0.4%, respectively, with the content of 9% and 12% bio-heavy oil. The physical properties and rheological properties of asphalt were analyzed and evaluated by three indexes and a dynamic shear rheological test. Through the rutting test and immersion Marshall test, heightemperature performance and biological asphalt mixture's water stability were evaluated. The results show that straw fiber can improve bio-asphalt mixture's road performance, especially the performance of high-temperature rutting. When the fiber content of bio-asphalt with 9% bio-heavy oil content is 0.3%, the physical properties and rheological properties of bio-asphalt are the best. Corn straw fiber's influence on bio-asphalt mixture was better than that of wheat straw fiber. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As China's natural resource governance has turned to high-quality management, establishing reasonable and ecological land-use patterns is an effective means of promoting natural resource utilization and improving the quality of the ecological environment. Therefore, this study used ecological land as the expansion source to construct an ecological land-use pattern with the minimum cumulative resistance model in Haixing County, China, based on regional food security, ecological security, and construction land expansion patterns. This work also involved designing ecological corridors, radiation channels, strategic nodes, and other ecological components. The results demonstrate that (1) the ecological land source is 7976.93 hm2, accounting for 9.19% of the total area. It is mainly distributed in the southeast of the county, mainly in the river system and woodland; (2) the food security situation of Haixing County can be divided into four zones, most of which are agricultural adjustment areas, indicating that the ecological security of cultivated land in this area needs to be improved; (3) the ecological security level of Haixing County is divided into four areas, and the ideal safety zone accounts for the smallest area, indicating that the regional ecological situation is very unstable; (4) construction land expansion zone is divided into four parts. A suitable construction zone occupies the largest area and is mainly distributed around the current construction land; (5) the expansion of the ecological land-use pattern of Haixing County includes four zones, 15 ecological corridors, 12 radiation channels, and 35 strategic nodes, which is conducive to optimal land allocation from an ecological security perspective. This paper puts forward some suggestions for ecological protection and intensive urban development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The status quo that the shortage of water resources in North China and the arbitrary discharge of sewage in rural areas have led to the deterioration of water environment, which not only aggravates the contradiction between supply and demand of regional water resources but also brings harm to people’s life and health. How to properly discharge sewage according to the actual situation in rural areas is a question that needs to be answered urgently. The method adopted in this paper is to build a constructed wetland with low cost and simple operation and maintenance in the study area, and purify the water quality through parallel + multi-stage cascade surface flow constructed wetland system. The results show that the purification effect of the wetland system is acceptable, and the removal rate of each index shows a decreasing trend with time. The larger the area is, and the more plant species there are, the better the removal effect will be. The trend of concentration change along the water flow path of each index is also gradually decreasing, and the decline in the early stage is larger. The method of standard index evaluation is adopted to evaluate water quality purification effect of the wetland system, and all indexes reach the standard. In accordance with the Surface Water Environment Quality Standard (GB3838-2002), after wetland purification, the water quality indexes of COD, TP, NH3-N and DO all reach Class IV water quality standard, and BOD5 reaches Class II water quality standard. The wetland system effectively reduces the impact of arbitrary sewage discharge on the water environment in rural areas and achieved water quality purification and ecological restoration. The quality of the living environment of local residents is improved. The beautiful environment also promotes people’s awareness of protecting wetland ecological environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds a factor decomposition model of methane emissions from livestock from the three dimensions of technology, economy and population, by using the panel data covering 31 provincial regions in China during 2003-2016, and aims to reveal the macroscopic causes of methane emissions from livestock. The research shows that technical, economic and population factors of methane emissions from livestock have diminishing marginal contribution. The methane emissions from intestinal fermentation is mainly restricted by livestock’s physiological structure. Following increase or decrease of livestock feeding quantity, it changes with a relatively stable parameter and has little controllability. Methane emissions from faecal management is limited little by livestock’s physiological structure and it is largely controllable. The government should increase technical input to reduce methane emission factors of livestock, deal with livestock manure through resource utilization, and reduce raising scale by using a certain market mechanism in due course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

River ecosystem is one of the most important ecosystems, and it provides many ecosystem services for human beings. However, river health has also been damaged by over-exploitation and water pollution. In the process of reservoir operation, the ecological flow demand of rivers should be fully considered and multi-objective ecological dispatch of reservoirs should be implemented. On basis of the traditional particle swarm optimization (PSO), the improved PSO with adaptive random inertia weights (ARIW) is proposed to deal with the problem of ecological optimal operation of reservoir in the paper. According to the evolutionary process, based on the probability distribution density function of triangle, the inertia weight can be adjusted randomly and adaptively to meet the global or local optimization requirements. By typical mathematical function, the improved PSO algorithm is compared with traditional PSO and genetic algorithm (GA), and is proved to be more efficient and accurate. Taking Panjiakou Reservoir on the main stream of Luanhe River in China as an example, the multi-objective ecological optimal dispatch of reservoir has been analysed and calculated with the improved PSO algorithm under different target years, considering flood control, water supply, and ecological demand. The research results can provide reference for developing rationally Luanhe River water resources, and making scientifically ecological dispatch plan of Panjiakou reservoir. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To fully understand the development models of the green mining economy, this paper, based on the western externality theory, focused on a green mining construction case in China. Results have shown that the green mining concept has early emerged in the mining industry and currently has reached a relatively high target, indicating the application value of the concept of green mining development. It is then concluded that the green mining development model is valid and effectively verified by the green mining construction case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Excessively high concentration of inorganic salts in the groundwater is the main threat for residents to drink directly in the remote areas of northwestern China. In this paper, nano-porous membrane process was proposed to removal of diverse ions in such raw water. Through the response surface methodology (RSM), the effects of multiple factors on permeate flux and ion rejection rates were analysed, and the application scope of nanofiltration for various water resource was evaluated. It was found that the factors affecting permeate flux, chloride removal and nitrate removal (response value) followed some typical sequences, and the operating pressure was always the most influential factor. Besides, nano-porous membrane process showed predominant performance in the removal of sulphate, chloride and fluoride; the rejection rates were over 99%, 97% and 95%, respectively, and the produced water could completely satisfy the relevant national standards for drinking water. However, nitrate removal rate was seldom over 80%, and it reduced obviously with the increasing initial concentration of nitrate, thus the nitrate content of raw water should be controlled within 40 mg.L-1 . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Meeting landscape environmental water demand is one of the necessary conditions for realizing the stability and sustainablity of landscape environment. According to the characteristics of medium and small rivers in the northern cities, based on the river function, the concept of landscape environmental water demand was proposed, also its calculation method is studied in this paper. The landscape environmental water demand for medium and small rivers in the northern area can be divided into two parts according to the river functional types: environmental water demand and landscape water demand. To environmental water demand, according to river function, hydrological characteristics and water resources in different periods, the method to calculate the water demand by stages is put forward in the paper. Then integrating with landscape water demand, the landscape environmental water demand is calculated. Taking Shenyang Pu River ecological corridor as an example, it is divided into 9 sections combined with practical application and the landscape environmental water demand is calculated by the partition and staging. The results show that the landscape environmental water demand of Pu River ecological corridor is 6749.56x104 m³/year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land use cover (LUC) classification is one of the most important applications of optical remotely sensed data, while LUC mapping outcomes are used for global, local mapping, ecosystem assessment and environmental process monitoring. Hence, in this study, in order to evaluate the advantages and drawbacks of supervised classification schemes, the paper chose the optical image data of Landsat 8 OLI in Miyun county to test supervised classification and introduced Parallelepiped Method (PM), Minimum Distance (MD), Maximum Likelihood Classifier (MLC) and Support Vector Machines (SVMs) to improve classification accuracy of LUC mapping and to obtain the reliable LUC distribution. The four classified images reveal that the study area is dominated by considerable areas of forest land, with the overall accuracy found to be 87.89% (kappa = 0.8524) using SVMs, 85.26% (kappa = 0.8205) using MLC, 82.11% (kappa = 0.7813) using MD, and 74.74% (kappa = 0.6920) using PM. Based on the overall accuracy and kappa statistics, SVMs might be the first option in terms of classification accuracy without taking into account of the time costly and standard PC and laptops. MLC was the second accurate model classifiers from the classified image, which was always used to obtain LUC map information for economic potential in time and cost; and PM has shown the lowest overall classification accuracy with greater omission errors and commission errors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the problem of modelling greenhouse indoor thermal environment in China. In order to achieve this goal, six main factors were taken into account in describing the greenhouse heat exchange with the outside, including solar radiation, artificial heating, long wave radiation, convection, ventilation and crop transpiration. According to the thermal balance principle of greenhouse, by quantizing vent opening, based on a design idea of Simulink platform, a non-linear differential mathematical model for simulating the greenhouse indoor air temperature was built. An experiment was taken to testify the validity of the simulation model in a Venlo type greenhouse in North China during spring. By using two groups of typical measured data in different weather conditions, the simulated value agreed well with the measured data. The results show that the standard errors in sunny and cloudy days are 0.6738°C and 0.3051°C respectively, as well as the index of simulation effectiveness is 81.17% and 82.12%. The results provide a basis of a model for the environmental regulation research on North China greenhouse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The environment of Beijing, the capital of China, has deteriorated, which need to be managed in the areas of the city and the neighboring rural areas. Zhangcheng district is the main soil and water conservation area of Beijing. Agricultural-ecological environmental problems of Zhangcheng district are increasingly serious, because of conflict between different benefit of each main body in the agricultural ecosystem. Agriculturalecological compensation, as an institutional arrangement to adjust the damage and the protection of agricultural-ecological environment interest relations, is an effective measure to protect the ecological environment. This paper takes Zhangcheng district as an example, using the game theory to study its agroecological compensation mechanism theory model, as well as the compensation policy decisions and behaviour process between subject and object in the compensation practice process. The analysis shows that: (1) The ecological compensation policy effect is not entirely depending on the amount of compensation in size, and only by improving the standard of compensation to protect environment is not wise; (2) Ecological compensation policy made by government should also be included in the scope of compensation limit policy; (3) The level of development of the third industry and the income of migrant workers directly affects the level of ecological construction project implementation effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction industry of China is characterized by its huge consumption and carbon emissions, thereby making this industry one of the most important areas that require energy conservation efforts. Identifying those factors that affect carbon emissions in the construction industry carries great significance in reducing building carbon emissions, promoting low-carbon cities, and achieving China’s emission reduction goals. This paper firstly reviews the literature on those factors that affect the carbon emissions in the construction industries of developed countries. Second, by using Henan Province as an example, those factors that influence carbon emissions are measured by using the classical STIRPAT (Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence and Technology) model. Third, some measures for reducing carbon emissions in the construction industry are developed. Those factors that influence the carbon emissions of buildings are multi-dimensional and diversified. Resident population, urbanization rate, building carbon emission intensity, per capita GDP (Gross Domestic Product), and per capita added value of the tertiary industry all have significant effects on the carbon emissions of buildings in Henan Province. Some policy suggestions can be derived from the findings of this work, such as encouraging building energy conservation, improving the energy efficiency of the construction industry, adjusting the use of building materials, and improving the extant policies for building emission reduction. The results also provide a theoretical basis for identifying those factors that affect the carbon emissions in the construction industry and for formulating and implementing strategies for the low-carbon development of this industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industrial enterprises are rising in China, but their backward technological level, poor independent innovation capability, excess production capacity, and low utilization efficiency of resources and energy have resulted in serious environmental pollution. The overall technology innovation efficiency of industrial enterprises in China can be effectively improved to reduce the industrial “three-waste” discharge but only when the enterprises promote structural optimization and adjust themselves toward industrial services through technology innovation. The influence of R&D expenditures of large- and medium-sized industrial enterprises on industrial “three-waste” discharge was estimated based on the panel data of 11 prefecture-level cities in Zhejiang Province during 2005-2016. In addition, technology innovation measures for environmental pollution control of industrial enterprises were proposed. The results demonstrated that enterprise technology innovation has an environmental protection effect, and improved enterprise production efficiency contributes to the reduction of pollutant discharge. Besides, enterprise R&D expenditures in most cities in Zhejiang Province are negatively correlated with environmental pollutant discharge, and the influence is significant. Moreover, the technology innovation input of industrial enterprises can reduce industrial pollutant discharge in Hangzhou, Ningbo, Wenzhou, Huzhou, and Taizhou due to their good economic foundations. The study results in this paper have a direct and realistic significance in analysing the influence mechanism for the technology innovation of ecological environmental pollution of enterprises, promoting optimization and upgrading of industrial structures in different regions, and elevating regional environmental pollution governance level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subject in this paper is the surface water of Yuecheng Reservoir in Handan. On the premise of analysing variation characteristics of sulphate of Yuecheng Reservoir, we recognized reasons of increased sulphate concentration value resulting in water pollution. It drew conclusions that sulphate concentration in Yuecheng Reservoir varied significantly during winter and reached maximum. At the same time, there was a significant correlation between sulphate concentration of atmospheric precipitation in urban areas and sulphate concentration of Yuecheng Reservoir, which was because that the sulphate of atmospheric precipitation reached to the reservoir by surface runoff, having a certain degree of influence on the sulphate concentration of Yuecheng Reservoir. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the traditional concept of productivity and from the environmental protection perspective, this paper put forward the concept of ecological footprint productivity (EFP), analysed its connotation, probed into its computation steps, and measured China's EFP. Results showed that EFPs of cultivated land, forest land, grassland, water areas, and whole land have displayed a tendency of increasing since 2001, showing the development track of the right half of the U-shaped curve. By contrast, the EFPs of fossil energy land and building land had shown no apparent tendency. The EFP of all kinds of lands in China was estimated to show a continuous accelerated growth trend in the coming years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High emission, pollution, and energy consumption problems that result from rapid economic development have not yet been effectively solved. As an important force that drives economic development, industrial enterprises have caused considerable environmental pollution. To analyse the current status and causes of environmental pollution generated by Chinese industrial enterprises and propose concrete energy conservation and emission reduction environmental protection measures, this paper first reviewed Chinese and foreign studies on strategies that addressed environmental pollution caused by industrial enterprises. Then, the environmental pollution status of industrial enterprises was analysed, and problems in energy conservation and emission reduction of industrial enterprises, and their causes were identified. Finally, energy conservation and emission reduction strategies for industrial enterprises were proposed. Results indicate that environmental pollution of industrial enterprises is reflected through a rapidly growing proportion of total energy consumed by industrial enterprises, large industrial "three wastes" emission load, and year-by-year decline of the elasticity coefficient of energy consumption. The problems in energy conservation and emission reduction of industrial enterprises are an unreasonable industrial structure; a distinct contradiction in energy consumption structure; difficulty in guaranteeing various inputs of energy conservation and emission reduction; imperfect energy conservation and emission reduction policies and regulations; and insufficient marketing measures. The main cause of the environmental pollution generated by industrial enterprises is the lack of effective supervision for the implementation of energy conservation and emission reduction policies, and low awareness about energy consumption and emission reduction. Our findings are critical to further understanding the environmental pollution caused by industrial enterprises, encouraging the government to formulate energy conservation and emission reduction measures in accordance with the practical situation, and enabling industrial enterprises to continuously reduce their energy consumption and emission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, soils at various altitudes in the lower reaches of the Jinshajiang River, Ningnan County, Sichuan Province, China, were selected to study the variation in characteristics of soil enzymes and soil microbial biomass and their activities at different altitudes. By laboratory testing, statistical analysis and correlation analysis, results indicated that in the dry-hot river valley region, the altitude has a significant impact on the soil microbial characteristics, including soil enzyme activities, microbial biomass, soil basal respiration intensity and substrate-induced respiration intensity (SIR). The major indicators of soil enzymes and microbial biomass exhibit an evident linear increasing trend with the rise in altitude. Soil enzymes and microbial biomass and their activities increase gradually with the reduction in dry-hot wind impact at altitudes ranging from 705-1005 m; thereafter, these indicators tend to be stable as a whole, as the altitude continues to rise and the impact of the dry-hot wind lessens. Under wet-dry cycling conditions, the main soil microbial characteristics, including soil enzyme activities, microbial biomass, soil basal respiration intensity and SIR, display an evident dry-wet seasonal change following a similar law of change; that is, the soil enzymes and microbial biomass and their activities in the dry season are significantly lower than are those in the wet season. The metabolic quotient (qCO2) in the dry season initially falls, then rises and, finally tends to be stable with the rise in altitude, whereas, in the wet season, there is no significant change in qCO2 with altitude. Further analysis shows that soil enzyme indicators, enzyme activities, soil microbial biomass and its activities in both dry and wet seasons have relatively strong correlations with soil physical and chemical properties, and, thus, can act as the indicators for soil fertility assessment. Therefore, the dry-hot wind is one of the major factors that impact soil enzymes and microbial biomass and their activities in the dry-hot river valley region along the Jinshajiang River. Technical measures should be taken, so far as is possible, during the ecological restoration to reduce the stress effects of the dry-hot wind on soil and vegetation and, thus, to promote sustainable development of regional ecological construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aging oil is a common pollutant in petrochemical enterprises due to its severe emulsification and flocculation, poor settling performance, low oil recovery rate, and high difficulty in treatment. This article adopts the method of mechanical, ultrasonic, and chemical coupling demulsification to treat aging oil, with the water content and oil recovery rate of the treated aging oil as the inspection indicators. The experiment shows that when the oil-water ratio is 1:4, the heating temperature is 50°C, the stirring speed is 180rpm, the ultrasonic frequency is 25kHz, the power is 40W, the ultrasonic time is 25min, and the pH is adjusted to 3-4. The additional amount of FeSO4 is 160mg/L, the additional amount of H2O2 is 0.11%, and the heating stirring reaction is 40min. When the dosage of cationic PAM with an ion degree of 50 is 35mg/L, the centrifugation speed is 3200rpm. The centrifugation time is 20 min, the crude oil recovery rate after aging oil treatment can reach over 94.6%, and the water content of the treated crude oil is less than 0.5%, meeting the standards for crude oil gathering and transportation in China. The oil content in the water generated after aging oil treatment is about 150 mg.L-1, the suspended solids content is 200 mg.L-1, the oil content in the residue is 6%, and the water content is 53%. By analyzing the appearance of aging oil before and after treatment, it was found that when using this process to treat aging oil, the original spatial cross-linking network structure of the aging oil was broken, allowing the water droplets wrapped in the oil to be released, thereby significantly reducing the water content in the recovered oil and improving the oil recovery rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural urbanization is a process of population agglomeration catalyzed by industrialization. At present, China’s urbanization process is accelerating against the backdrop of rapid social development. However, in some areas, economic development is emphasized, while the protection of the ecological environment is neglected, leading to the increasingly obvious contradiction between urbanization and rural ecological environment and is not conducive to economic development. In this paper, the development trend of China’s rural urbanization, the current situation of environmental pollution, and the progress of important environmental treatment projects are analyzed. Accordingly, the main problems in rural environmental protection and the impact of urbanization are explored. The problems led by industrial and domestic pollutants have been amplified by urbanization, while the improved connection between urban and rural areas will benefit the improvement of environmental infrastructure in rural areas. The government-led projects of rural water improvement, sanitary toilet penetration, methane gas production, and solar water heater have made great progress during the past two decades. Based on these understandings, we put forward feasible countermeasures to implement rural ecological environment protection during the process of urbanization to promote the benign development of rural urbanization. Our results will be helpful in providing some useful references for environmental protection in rural areas and promoting the coordinated development of the economy and environment during the process of urbanization in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the panel data of water and latrine improvement in rural China from 2003 to 2016, this paper explores the spatiotemporal evolution pattern of rural sanitation facilities and analyzes the spatial heterogeneity of influencing factors of rural sanitation facilities by using the Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) model. The conclusions are as follows: the gap between the western and the eastern regions of China is gradually narrowing; the spatial differences of rural environmental sanitation facilities in provinces were obvious, showing high-high and low-low agglomeration types. Additionally, years of education per capita, population density, and government investment all have a significant positive impact on the improvement of water and latrines. And the proportion of the minority population has a significant negative impact on the improvement of water. The net income per capita, traffic density, and residential investment per capita are significantly positively correlated with the improvement of water and latrines. But the difference is that the impact on the improvement of water is an obviously east-west band and decreases successively, and the impact on the improvement of latrines shows a dual pattern of polarization between north and south. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main geological landform in southwest China is karst, and hydrological resources in the region are rich. The water resources in this region cannot be efficiently and rationally used due to the complex topography and difficulty in developing water resources, which has led to problems such as desertification and soil erosion. The most typical area of karst landforms is in Guizhou Province. A water management method for an interconnected river system network is proposed, taking Guiyang as an example. This study provides a foundation for China’s South-to-North Water Diversion Project and can improve socioeconomic conditions in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coastal area of Pearl River Delta in China is the most active core zone with great potential in the development pattern of China's tourism economy. However, the development of tourism in this area has caused serious pollution to the ecological environment. As a consequence, several problems, such as sealand pollution and ecosystem imbalance, occur and affect the sustainable development of tourism. In this paper, the land, water body, biotic environment, and air pollution in the area were analysed to understand the pollution in this region and to analyse the sustainable development of tourism resources. The mechanism of the interaction between external environments (nature, economy, society) and internal environments (subjects and objects of tourism) was also investigated on the basis of the environmental carrying capacity. Results showed that tourism caused pollution at different levels. With economic growth and increased awareness on environmental protection, the amount of pollution has been reduced. The natural subsystem in external environments is more likely to be polluted, but the subsystems of economy and society can help alleviate environmental pollution. The subject of tourism in internal environments is the major cause of pollution, but the incompetence of tourism objects can affect pollution control. This study focuses on the control over environmental pollution caused by tourism in the coastal area of the Pearl River Delta. This work is of great significance for the coordinated and sustainable development of tourism and the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wetland park is one of the city's major ecological infrastructures, undertaking the dual functions of improving the ecological environment and providing recreational places. Studying the reasonable construction methods of the wetland park is very important for its sustainable development. In this paper, a wetland park with an area of 173.5 hectares located in Zhangzhou City, Fujian Province, China is taken as an example to show how to apply the concepts and measures of resource saving and environment friendliness to the three development phases of planning, construction and management of the park. Measures of resource saving include land conservation, water resource conservation, energy conservation, vegetation optimization, application of low carbon construction techniques, indigenous materials and intelligent technologies used in management. Environment friendly measures include development intensity control, man-made wetland construction, friendly materials adoption, fibre resource using wooden plank, road building on stilts, topsoil and native vegetation protection during construction, noise control, pesticide usage reduction in management, bio-safety disposal of garbage and tourists capacity control. Resource saving and environment friendly wetland park construction can effectively promote the sustainable development of the park. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the rapid development of the industrial economy, the environmental problems caused by water resource pollution have increased in severity. Thus, the optimal use of various natural resources and the reduction of water environmental pollution are important to promote the healthy development of the social economy and the environment. In this paper, the 2001-2013 time series data of discharged volumes of industrial wastewater, industrial chemical oxygen demand, and GDP are employed to analyse the relationship between the water environmental pollution and economic growth of Beijing, Tianjin and Zhengzhou. First, two models are established for the F test and T test on the relationship between GDP per capita and water pollutant discharge. A complete decomposition model is then adopted to analyse the effects of economic scale, industrial structure, and technological progress on water environmental pollution. Investigation results indicate that the relationships between the industrial wastewater discharge and economic growth of Beijing, Tianjin and Zhengzhou show reverse N-shaped curves instead of reverse U-shaped curves. At present, higher economic growth leads to more industrial water pollution. Economic scale and technological progress are the major influencing factors of water pollutant discharge. Therefore, the overall regional water environmental quality can be substantially improved only by enhancing the cooperation between Beijing, Tianjin and Zhengzhou to improve the capacity and efficiency of regional pollution control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese Government wants to develop mixed stands with complex structures, particularly in monoculture forest areas. However, despite the enthusiasm for planting trees, is sufficient thought being given to the development of forestry objectives? A logical alternative would seem to describe the structure of such mixed stands through the use of specific-model management tools. This paper conceptualizes and assesses forest development types (FDTs) of management designs and silvicultural principles across three contemporary forest development types: the restoration, the nature-based, and the commercial paradigms. Forest development type design and silvicultural treatments were conceptualized from a review and case studies. The study was conducted as a case study focusing on the planning and development of long-term management goals for three mixed stands for multiple uses. Using FDTs, visual representations of planting design and stand development were obtained as a basis for the "expert" assessment of five criteria: the forest overview, the objectives, the proportion of tree species, the mix type, and the management operations. The assessment showed that forests vary considerably among planting designs and silvicultural systems. FDTs utilizing succession and variation in species, diversity, growth and tree regeneration offer an extended paradigm of multi-functional management. With regard to the ongoing move from timber-dominated forestry to the multifunctional management of mixed stands, fostering dialogue may be the most effective means for forest development types to contribute to the implementation of new management paradigms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The types and quality of services are provided to humans by ecosystems vary widely across the earth's landscapes. As human population increases, people are placing increasing importance on ecosystem services and the topic has moved to the forefront of human concerns. This paper analyses regional differences in the functioning of ecosystem services related to land-and-water resources based on panel data collected in 2011 and establishes an index system that can be used to evaluate the functioning of ecosystem services. Furthermore, 31 regions were clustered and compared using an evaluation matrix that considers the current level and pace of economic development in those regions. First, results show that a certain level of spatial heterogeneity exists among the ecosystem services provided by land-and-water resources in different regions of China; this heterogeneity is closely connected with the current conditions and speed of economic development. Second, the services provided by ecosystems appear to function and perform better in north, east and northeast China, in areas with stronger economic development, but a limited history of past development. Finally, ecosystem services perform poorly in north China, south China, Tibet, and northwest and southwest China in areas that exhibit different speeds of economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]