Search

In 2015, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) replaced the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), providing guidance and direction for the future development of countries around the world. Both MDG and SDG have established multiple indicators to achieve environmental sustainability. However, few studies have compared the changes in the ecological environment during the two periods. Therefore, this study selected the seven major river basins in China as the study area and comprehensively assessed the changes in ecosystem service importance (ESI) within different basins in the MDG and SDG periods based on six ecosystem services, including habitat quality, soil conservation, water yield, carbon storage, grain production, and aesthetic landscape. Specifically, the changes from 2000 to 2015 and 2015 to 2020 were used to represent MDG and SDG periods, respectively. The results showed that the overall ESI of the seven major river basins showed an increasing trend in both periods, and the proportion of extremely important basins reached 20.39% in 2020, mostly distributed in the Yangtze River basin and the Pearl River basin. Except for carbon storage, other ecosystem services were restored in the SDG period. However, COVID-19 and a series of sudden disasters in 2020 have greatly affected grain production and the aesthetic landscape. The fluctuation of habitat quality also indicated that although the ecological environment has a trend of recovery, there was still some degradation compared to 20 years ago. National protection policies and restoration projects have gradually improved the ecological environment of the seven river basins and are striving to reach the SDG standards step by step. However, many problems still need to be solved urgently, such as the reduction of ecological land, the increase in carbon emissions, and the weak resilience to disasters. China has made significant positive progress in MDG, and more efforts are needed to achieve the SDG goals in the future. [Display omitted] • The changes in ecosystem services and their importance of the seven major river basins in China were explored. • The ecosystem service importance has steadily increased in the MDG and SDG periods. • China ecological policies and restoration projects have been essential to mitigate the environment degradation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon storage plays an important role in urban ecosystems. However, urban expansion leads to urban ecosystem changes and hence directly threatens carbon storage. Therefore, modelling the potential impacts of urban expansion on carbon storage is necessary. This study links the Conversion of Land Use and its Effects at Small regional extent (CLUE-S) model and the Integrated Valuation of Environmental Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) model to analyze the potential impacts of urban expansion on carbon storage in Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan urban agglomeration from 2014 to 2023 under three urban expansion scenarios, namely Natural Increase Scenario (NIS), Cultivated Protection Scenario (CPS), and Ecological Protection Scenario (EPS). The results indicated (1) carbon storage of Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan urban agglomeration experienced a loss of 8.64 Tg from 1995 to 2009; (2) from 2014 to 2023, the carbon storage will experience the most loss of 8.54 Tg under the NIS, will experience the least loss of 7.12 Tg under the EPS, and will experience moderate loss of 7.92 Tg under the CPS; (3) the conversions of green land ecosystem and cultivated ecosystem to built-up ecosystem are the main cause of regional carbon storage loss in Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan urban agglomeration; (4) the carbon storage loss will primarily occur in the junction region of Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan urban agglomeration because every city is incline to expand toward other cities in an urban agglomeration system. We argue in favor of integrating multiple ecosystem services into urban land use planning to obtain a sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Formulation of different ecological zone plans according to the corresponding protection targets and the necessity of proper conservation policy is one of the measures to achieve the goal of ecological conservation in China. In order to clarify the interrelation among key ecological zone plans, this paper carried out the research on spatial relation of priority areas of biodiversity conservation and three key ecological areas (key ecological function areas, key regions of ecological service function, national nature reserves) and the research on ecological conditions, based on multi-scale ecological spatial theme information, which incorporates elements like ecological quality and type, and by the aid of spatial information analysis and GIS modeling. The results showed a contrastively fine spatial consistency with 68.8% of priority areas of biodiversity conservation overlapping with three key ecological areas. Although the environment in priority areas of biodiversity conservation were in good conditions, protection pressure is also increasing, powerful supervision and protection should not be ignored. The environmental conditions in the overlapping areas, as a whole, were superior to those in the non-overlapping areas. Since two areas have different characteristics, targeted protection measures should be formulated based on this difference, which will be very important for biodiversity conservation in priority areas of biodiversity conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Terrestrial ecosystem services can offer various kinds of benefits for human life and production and play a critical role in the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The quantitative evaluation and spatial mapping of ecosystem services can offer useful information and knowledge for the natural resource protection and implementation of the SDGs. In our study, we investigated the ecosystem service value (ESV) from 2015 to 2035 under three alternative scenarios and examined their contributions to the SDGs in the Wuhan urban agglomeration. The spatial allocation algorithm, which integrates random forest regression and the CLUE-S model, was used to project the spatial distribution of land use from 2015 to 2035 under the natural increase scenario (NIS), economic development scenario (EDS), and ecological protection scenario (EPS). These simulation results generated the indicators of SDG 15.1.1 and 15.3.1. Then, the equivalent coefficients table method was leveraged to evaluate the ESV changes that resulted from land use changes, which could directly contribute to the SDG 15.9 target. The results indicated that the EDS had the lowest value for SDG 15.1.1 and the highest value for SDG 15.3.1, while the EPS had the highest value for SDG 15.1.1 and a moderate value for SDG 15.3.1. The total ESV increased from 2015 to 2035 under NIS and EPS, with gains of 5.46 and 8.86 billion CNY, respectively. In contrast, the total ESV decreased under EDS, with a loss of 0.33 billion CNY. In addition, it was found that the land degradation corresponding to SDG 15.3.1 would result in ESV losses of 8.40, 12.24, and 4.88 billion CNY under NIS, EDS, and EPS, respectively. This research developed an integrated framework to assess the potential impacts of land use changes on the ESV under three future scenarios and could offer foundational knowledge for urban development and realization of the SDGs. • Predict future patterns of land use by coupling random forest and CLUE-S model. • Evaluate ecosystem service value (ESV) using equivalent coefficients table method. • Calculate SDG 15.1.1 and 15.3.1, and link the ESV with other SDGs targets. • Analyze implications for SDGs reporting and urban sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A method for wetland simulation was proposed by coupling random forest and CLUE-S. • Three scenarios were designed to explore different modes for urban development. • The wetland patterns in WUA were predicted from 2015 to 2040 under three scenarios. • Future wetland losses/gains were examined by transition matrix and overlay analysis. Wetlands are one of the most productive ecosystems and play an important role in supporting a wide range of biodiversity and providing various kinds of ecosystem services. Rapid urbanization and climate change, however, have resulted in the disappearance of large amounts of wetlands. In this research, we developed a spatial allocation model by coupling random forest regression and the CLUE-S algorithm to simulate the spatial dynamics of wetlands in the Wuhan Urban Agglomeration. Then, the calibrated model was used to predict the wetland distributions from 2015 to 2040 under three scenarios, i.e. natural increase scenario (NIS), economic development scenario (EDS), and wetland protection scenario (WPS). The results showed that: (1) the natural wetlands exhibit a slight decreased trend under EDS, and a slight increased trend under WPS. But regardless of scenarios, the natural wetlands will suffer from degradation in densely built-up areas during 2015–2040; (2) The ponds will clearly expand under all scenarios, and most of their expansion distribute in Xiantao city; (3) The paddy will continue to degradation under three scenarios, and the area decreases most under EDS with value of 2866.94 km2. Most of the paddy degradation are located in Wuhan, Xiantao and Ezhou city. The proposed framework offered an effective tool to explore the urban wetland dynamics in the future, and revealed wetland distribution under different scenarios, which could provide support for the protection of urban wetlands and sustainable future develop in the Wuhan Urban Agglomeration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]