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Eco-civilization, as a civilizational discourse led by China, implies the next stage of civilization after industrial civilization, the essence of which is to respect, conform to, and protect nature. Although the international community is paying more attention to eco-civilization, the existing literature still lacks a systematic discussion of which theories and practices underpin the construction of eco-civilization. Due to the ambiguity of eco-civilization, some even criticize it as being a form of purely partisan politics in China. By systematically reviewing its theoretical pillars, practical actions, and major achievements, this perspective paper argues that China's eco-civilization is not a partisan politics, but rather a legitimate, imperative pathway to global sustainable development rooted in complementary theory and practice, i.e., theories guide practices, and practices enrich theories. We highlight that the theoretical basis and practical actions of eco-civilization constitute a continual improvement process that permits diverse viewpoints and understanding, and any action exploring how to achieve a harmonious coexistence between humans and nature is consistent with the values of eco-civilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] At the mid-point to 2030, progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) varies significantly across countries. While the classification of countries can lay the foundation for improving policy efficiency and promoting joint action, bottom-up, SDG data-driven country classifications have largely remained unexplored. Here, we classified 166 countries based on their performances in the 17 SDGs and further used the classification to analyze SDG interactions and compare development aid distributions. The countries were classified into five groups, ranging from "lowest development with good environment" to "high development needing climate action". None of them scored highly in all SDGs, and due to trade-offs related to environment and climate SDGs, none of them can achieve all SDGs eventually. To maximize the potential for achieving the SDGs, all countries need to undergo a sustainable transformation, and prioritizing certain SDGs, such as SDG 9 (industry, innovation and infrastructure), can help countries with lower sustainable development levels achieve more with less. Furthermore, global development aid should be better aligned with country needs, particularly in areas of education, energy, environment, and water supply and sanitation. By better characterizing different countries, this study reveals the bleak prospects of achieving all SDGs and provides valuable insights into more targeted actions for national sustainable development and global collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Facing the need for transdisciplinary research to promote ecological restoration that achieves both social and ecological benefits, research on past restoration efforts that have directly or indirectly contributed to regional or national sustainable development warrants reassessment. Using China as an example, in this review, we address three basic research questions that can be summarized as follows: ecological restoration—of what, for whom and to what purpose? Accordingly, a 'landscape pattern—ecosystem service—sustainable development' co-evolutionary framework is proposed here to describe landscape-scale ecological restoration and its impact on landscape patterns and ecological processes, ecosystem services for human well-being, sustainable livelihoods and socioeconomic development. From the strategic pattern of national ecological security to the pattern of major projects to protect and restore major national ecosystems, the spatial pattern of China's ecological restoration is more geographically integrative. From major function-oriented zoning to systematic ecological protection and restoration, and for the purpose of achieving the Beautiful China Initiative, there are three stages of ecosystem services management: classification, synergy and integration, respectively. The difference in geographic processes should be considered in the key requirements of ecological restoration for China's five national strategies for regional sustainable-development strategies. Deepening understanding of the relationship between humans and nature in different geographical contexts is a scientific prerequisite to support policymaking related to ecological restoration. To promote greater harmony between humans and nature, we propose four important research directions: (i) understanding coupling processes among key components, (ii) identifying ecosystem service flows, (iii) evaluating social-ecological benefits and (iv) supporting adaptive management for regional sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] Synergistically maintain or enhance the numerous beneficial contributions of nature to the quality of human life is an important but challenging question for achieving Sustainable Development Goals. However, the spatiotemporal distributions of global nature's contributions to people (NCPs) and their interactions remain unclear. We built a rapid assessment indicator framework and produced the first spatially explicit assessment of all 18 NCPs at a global scale. The 18 global NCPs in 1992 and 2018 were globally assessed in 15,204 subbasins based on two spatial indicator dimensions, including nature's potential contribution and the actual contribution to people. The results show that most of the high NCP values are highly localized. From 1992 to 2018, 6 regulating NCPs, 3 material NCPs, and 2 nonmaterial NCPs declined; 29 regulating-material NCP combinations (54 in total) dominated 76% of the terrestrial area, and the area with few NCPs accounted for 22%; and synergistic relationships were more common than tradeoff relationships, while the relationships among regulating and material NCPs generally traded-off with each other. Transitional climate areas contained few NCPs and have strong tradeoff relationships. However, the high synergistic relationship among NCPs in low latitudes could be threatened by future climate change. These findings provide a general spatiotemporal understanding of global NCP distributions and can be used to interpret the biogeographic information in a functional way to support regional coordination and achieve landscape multifunctionality for the enhancement of human well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drylands cover about 40% of the terrestrial surface and are sensitive to climate change, but their relative contributions to global vegetation greening and productivity increase in recent decades are still poorly known. Here, by integrating satellite data and biosphere modeling, we showed that drylands contributed more to global gross primary productivity (GPP) increase (65% ± 16%) than to Earth greening (33% ± 15%) observed during 1982–2015. The enhanced productivity per unit leaf area, i.e., light-use efficiency (LUE), was the mechanism behind this pattern. We also found that LUE was more sensitive to soil moisture than to atmospheric vapor pressure deficit (VPD) in drylands, while the opposite was observed (i.e., LUE was more sensitive to VPD) in humid areas. Our findings suggest the importance of using different moisture stress metrics in projecting the vegetation productivity changes of dry versus humid regions and highlight the prominent role of drylands as key controllers of the global carbon cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wetlands are of global importance in providing essential ecosystem services but are also sensitive to climate change and human activities. Monitoring and assessing wetland vulnerability are crucial for ecological conservation and management strategies. However, the framework of wetland vulnerability assessment and the underlying mechanisms have not been well studied. In this study, the spatiotemporal variations in wetland vulnerability on the Qinghai‒Tibet Plateau (QTP) between 1990 and 2020 were investigated based on the ecosystem pattern-process-function framework. The key driving factors were identified by partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) and multiscale geographically weighted regression (MGWR) models. Our results showed that the wetland ecosystem pattern index (EPI), ecosystem process index (EPOI), ecosystem function index (EFI), and wetland vulnerability index (WVI) all demonstrated an increasing pattern from northwest to southeast. Between 1990 and 2020, the mean WVI values gradually decreased from 0.616 to 0.588, indicating a steady improvement in the wetland ecosystem on the QTP. Rapid urbanization increased the EPOI, while rugged topography increased both the EPI and EPOI, and the increase in hydrological abundance enhanced the EFI, which in turn contributed to an increase in the WVI. Conversely, climatic conditions led to a reduction in the EPI, which in turn resulted in a significant decrease in the WVI. Therefore, although urbanization and topographical and hydrological factors have somewhat exacerbated the WVI on the QTP, variable climatic conditions have driven the decline in wetland vulnerability in the last three decades. Furthermore, our results indicated that the proposed framework could provide a comprehensive approach for wetland vulnerability assessment and useful implications for wetland conservation and management. [Display omitted] • An ecosystem pattern-process-function framework was proposed to evaluate wetland vulnerability. • Wetland vulnerability index (WVI) decreased from 1990 to 2020 on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP). • Urbanization, topographic and hydrological factors have exacerbated the WVI on the QTP. • Variable climatic conditions dominated the decreased WVI during the last three decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drought is the most widespread climatic extreme that has negative impacts on ecohydrology. Studies have shown that drought can cause certain degrees of disturbances to different ecohydrological variables, but the duration and severity thresholds of drought that are sufficient to cause changes in ecohydrological variables remain largely unknown. At the same time, we should not ignore the dynamic variation of drought's effect on ecohydrological variables under the condition of climate change. Here, we derived the thresholds of several ecohydrological variables in response to drought in a historical period (1982–2015), including evapotranspiration (ET), soil moisture (SM), the vapor pressure deficit (VPD) and the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and we projected the occurrence probability's change trend of drought events that cause changes in ecohydrological variables under future climate change. The results show that the impact of drought on ecohydrological variables is not dependent on drought indicators. ET and NDVI were expected to decrease in most parts of the world due to increases in radiation (RAD) and temperature (TEMP) and decreases in precipitation (PRE) during drought periods. SM decreased in most regions of the world (93.47%) during the drought period, while VPD increased in 85.41% of the globe. The response thresholds for different ecohydrological variables to drought in the same area did not differ significantly (especially for ET, SM and VPD). When a drought lasted for 8 to 15 months and the corresponding drought severity reached 10 to 15 (the inverse of the cumulative values of the drought index when the drought occurs), the drought caused changes in the ecohydrological variables in most regions of the world. Compared with arid and semiarid regions, ecohydrological variables are more sensitive to drought in humid and semihumid regions (p < 0.05), and high-intensity human activities in different climatic conditions increased significantly the severity of drought processes. Between 2071 and 2100, more than half of the world's ecohydrological variables are expected to be more susceptible to drought disturbances (regions with shorter return periods of drought events that cause significant changes in ET, SM, VPD and NDVI account for 60.1%, 64.4%, 59.6% and 54.5% of the global land area, respectively). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Addressing the sustainability challenges that humanity is facing in the Anthropocene requires the coupling of human and natural systems, rather than their separate treatment. To help understand the dynamics of a coupled human and natural system (CHANS) and support the design of policies and measures that promote sustainability, we propose a conceptual cascade framework of "pattern–process–service–sustainability", which is characterized by coupling landscape patterns and ecological processes, linking ecological processes to ecosystem services, and promoting social–ecological sustainability. The use of this framework is illustrated by a review of CHANS research experience in China's Loess Plateau (LP), a well-known region for its historically severe soil erosion and successful ecological restoration achieved in recent decades. Ecological restoration in the LP has greatly increased its vegetation coverage and controlled its soil erosion. However, some accompanied issues, like soil drying in some areas due to the introduction of exotic plant species and the mismanagement of planted vegetation and water use conflicts between vegetation and humans caused by the trade-off between carbon sequestration and water supply, have started to threaten the long-term sustainability of the LP. Based on a comprehensive understanding of CHANS dynamics, the social–ecological sustainability of the LP can be improved through enhancing water and food security, implementing basin-wide governance, maintaining ecological restoration achievements, and promoting rural livelihood transition. The research experience accumulated on the LP offers examples of the application of the pattern–process–service–sustainability framework. Future research using this framework should especially focus on the integrated research of multiple processes; the cascades of ecosystem structure, function, services, and human well-being; the feedback mechanisms of human and natural systems; and the data and models for sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global vegetation photosynthesis and productivity is heterogeneous in both time and space. This study found that increasing temperature was still a positive factor for the carbon uptake of ecosystems, but not in regions with more droughts. The carbon benefits from global vegetation greening could disappear in a potentially drier and warmer planet due to soil water deficit. [Display omitted] Global vegetation photosynthesis and productivity have increased substantially since the 1980s, but this trend is heterogeneous in both time and space. Here, we categorize the secular trend in global vegetation greenness into sustained greening, sustained browning and greening-to-browning. We found that by 2016, increased global vegetation greenness had begun to level off, with the area of browning increasing in the last decade, reaching 39.0 million km2 (35.9% of the world's vegetated area). This area is larger than the area with sustained increasing growth (27.8 million km2, 26.4%); thus, 12.0% ± 3.1% (0.019 ± 0.004 NDVI a−1) of the previous earlier increase has been offset since 2010 (2010–2016, P < 0.05). Global gross primary production also leveled off, following the trend in vegetation greenness in time and space. This leveling off was caused by increasing soil water limitations due to the spatial expansion of drought, whose impact dominated over the impacts of temperature and solar radiation. This response of global gross primary production to soil water limitation was not identified by land submodels within Earth system models. Our results provide empirical evidence that global vegetation greenness and primary production are offset by water stress and suggest that as global warming continues, land submodels may overestimate the world's capacity to take up carbon with global vegetation greening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sediment source fingerprinting apportions the sources of sediment produced by water erosion by linking sampled sediment mixtures and landscape source materials using diagnostic and conservative fingerprints. Using this approach, the nature and location of active sediment sources across the catchment can be elucidated, generating information which is a key prerequisite for the design and implementation of catchment management strategies. The science of sediment source fingerprinting continues to attract much research globally, but to date, there have been relatively few fingerprinting studies in China. Here, there remain major challenges for the fingerprinting approach arising from the uniqueness of Chinese landscapes, including for instance, the complex land use configuration with highly fragmented or mosaic patches and the highly dynamic land use conversion rates, generating a need to test the physical basis for the discriminatory power and environmental behavior of both traditional and novel tracers. Future research is needed to investigate the applicability of tracer properties in different physiographic settings and to evaluate the potential strategic utility of the approach for supporting the improved management of soil and water sustainability. Here, the strategic availability of independent observation data for different components of catchment sediment budgets and well-maintained research infrastructure for plots, micro-catchments and drainage basins provides immediate opportunity for testing the approach and refining procedures. Such detailed testing across scales would be invaluable for promoting sediment source fingerprinting as both a scientific and management tool for informing soil and water conservation practices in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The natural environment provides material essentials for human survival and development. The characteristics, processes, regional differentiation and forcing mechanisms of the elements of the natural environment (e.g. geomorphology, climate, hydrology, soil, etc.) are the main objects of research in physical geography. China has a complex natural environment and huge regional differentiation and therefore it provides outstanding reserach opportunities in physical geography. This review summarizes the most important developments and the main contributions of research in the physical geography and human living environment in China during the past 70 years. The major topics addressed are the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau and the evolution of its cryosphere, the development of fluvial systems, the acidification of the vast arid region of the Asian interior, variations in the monsoon and westerly climate systems on multiple timescales, the development of lakes and wetlands, the watershed system model, soil erosion, past human-environment interactions, biogeography, and physical geographic zonality. After briefly introducing international research developments, we review the history of research in physical geography in China, focusing on the major achievements and major academic debates, and finally we summarize the status of current research and the future prospects. We propose that in the context of the national demand for the construction of an ecological civilization, we should make full use of the research findings of physical geography, and determine the patterns and mechanisms of natural environmental processes in order to continue to promote the continued contribution of physical geography to national development strategies, and to further contribute to the theory of physical geography from a global perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large hydrologic basins involve multiple stakeholders, and coupled dynamic social and ecological processes. Managing such basins has long been a challenge. Balancing the demand for water from nature against that from humans is always difficult, particularly in arid watersheds. Here, we analyze potential institutional causes of ecological degradation and how it can be reversed by introducing new forms of governance. The framework and assumptions are illustrated using China's second-largest endorheic basin, where empirical evidence shows that the introduction of a new governing authority connecting midstream and downstream actors facilitated the establishment of a new governance regime that is better aligned with the biophysical scales of the watershed. A trans-regional water allocation project initiated by the new higher-level authority successfully rescued downstream oases and restored a dried terminal lake. These outcomes suggest that when social and ecological structures are better aligned our ability to manage the interplay between social and ecological processes increases. However, the lack of direct connection between the actors of the middle and lower reaches resulted in the paradox of an increase in water demand. We therefore suggest that measures to stimulate the emergence of horizontal social ties linking different critical groups of actors across the watershed could further the alignment of the institutional and biophysical structures—without these changes sustainable management of river basins and other common pool resources will remain problematic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • We analyze the spatiotemporal pattern of the ECC on the Loess Plateau. • The average annual ECC is 577 ± 124 g C m−2 yr−1 during 1982–2012. • Due to revegetation, 26 counties have exceeded the ECC threshold. • 138 counties have water competition between ecosystems and socio-economic systems. • Under future climate change and growing water demand, ECC will increase by 6–36%. Abstract Revegetation, especially afforestation, has served as an important tool for controlling desertification. However, revegetation in water-limited regions will inevitably reduce the water available for socio-economic systems, which is poorly considered in decision-making on sustainable ecosystem management. This paper proposed a framework to determine the threshold of vegetation productivity (i.e., ecosystem carrying capacity), corresponding to available water resources for ecosystems (i.e., annual precipitation minus water demand for socio-economic systems) on the Loess Plateau. The average annual ecosystem carrying capacity (ECC) during 1982–2012 is 577 ± 124 g C m−2 yr−1, with spatial gradients increasing from northwest to southeast. Vegetation in rocky mountain areas has the largest value of 833 ± 200 g C m−2 yr−1. Factorial analysis suggests that changes in precipitation and human water use contributed to 55% and 45% of the multi-decadal changes in regional ECC, respectively. Meanwhile, due to revegetation, 26 counties on the Loess Plateau, mainly in the southeast and eastern parts, have exceeded the ECC threshold during the study period. An additional 138 counties have a high potential for water competition between the ecosystems and socio-economic systems. At the regional scale, there are 9 years (∼30% of the study period) during which the ECC threshold has been exceeded, especially after 1997. Considering the climate change in the future and the growing demand for water in socio-economic systems, the corresponding ECC threshold will increase by 6–36%. We believe that these findings can provide reference for policy-makers to make decisions towards ecosystem sustainability while meeting human needs for water resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Physical geography is the cornerstone of geography. In this article, the starting points of disciplines in physical geography in recent years in China are discussed. With the coupling of systems set as the research object, and sustainable development as the ultimate goal, the upgrade of physical geography can be deconstructed into three steps: deepen physical geography from the perspective of pattern-process coupling, improve the focus of physical geography from ecosystem processes to ecosystem services, and increase the understanding of the physical geography 'pattern, process, service, sustainability' research cascade. The incorporation of human activities into physical geographic processes is essential to conduct integrated analysis on physical and human factors at different scales. The development of ecosystem service models that couple supply-demand and sustainable development are of great importance to bridge the role of ecosystem services between the natural environment and human well-being. Moreover, human-land systems and sustainable development have become the core areas and frontiers of integrated physical geography and even geography in general. China faces the great strategic demand of constructing an ecological civilization in a new era, and the development of the disciplines of physical geography should give full access to the advantages of intersecting and comprehensive disciplines, focus on the human-land system patterns, processes, and services in key research areas, and provide disciplinary support for regional, national, and global sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Seasonal water use characteristics were investigated using isotope technique. • Native and exotic plant species exhibited different water use characteristics. • H. rhamnoides had a greater degree of ecological plasticity in water use. • Flexible water use characteristics were relevant to functionally dimorphic root systems. Abstract Knowledge of the processes underlying plant water use characteristics is critical for understanding soil–plant interactions and evaluating plant adaptability in water-limited ecosystems. The vegetation on the Loess Plateau has -dramatically changed due to the implementation of the Grain-for-Green Project from 1999. Despite this, water use characteristics of native and exotic shrub species remain poorly understood in this region. In this study, seasonal variations of water use characteristics of Spiraea pubescens (a native shrub) and Hippophae rhamnoides (an exotic shrub) in the Loess Plateau were investigated by examining the δ2H and δ18O of xylem and soil water from different soil layers within 300 cm of the surface, as well as the δ13C in plant leaves. Results revealed that H. rhamnoides and S. pubescens derived ˜80% of their water sources from the 0–120 cm soil layer during the growing seasons. However, H. rhamnoides absorbed higher proportions of deep soil water (120–300 cm) as the growing season progressed. H. rhamnoides flexibly converted its water source between shallow (0–40 cm) and deep soil layers. Moreover, H. rhamnoides had higher leaf-level water use efficiency than that of S. pubescens. These results suggest that H. rhamnoides has a greater degree of ecological plasticity in water use. Flexible water use characteristics are relevant to functionally dimorphic root systems as an adaptation strategy for the plants in water-limited environments. These findings indicate that water use characteristics of these plants should be considered when exotic species are introduced for revegetation in semiarid regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlight • Logistic regression evaluates erosion uncertainty in various patch cover types. • Erosion uncertainty is a supplement to the ecological function of soil erosion. • Structural equation modeling (SEM) explores the ecological structure of erosion. • Logistic regression and SEM assess the ecological integrity of soil erosion. Abstract Soil erosion accelerates the degradation of semiarid ecosystems. How to explain the erosion processes is increasingly attracting scientists' and practitioners' attention. In this study, we hypothesized the intensity and uncertainty of runoff and sediment events as the ecological function of soil erosion by using structural equation modeling (SEM), and integrated observed influencing factors to represent the ecological structure of soil erosion. We further assessed the interactions of ecological structures and functions in four typical patch covers containing bare patch (B type), Andropogon patch (G type), Artemisia coparia patch (H type) and Spiraea pubescens patch (J type) in the Loess Plateau over three rainy seasons. We found that (1) the highest and lowest probabilities of runoff (approaching to 0.37 and 0.22) and sediment (approaching to 0.27 and 0.03) events were in B and J types respectively. B type produced the highest runoff coefficients (0.004) and yielded 2–3 times more sediment than other three vegetation patch covers. (2) Antecedent soil moisture and crown width were two relative more crucial indicators to simultaneously affect the uncertainty and intensity of soil erosion in different patch cover patterns. (3) Soil saturated hydraulic conductivity connected the soil and plant latent variables to indicate the complexity of ecological structure. (4) The measurement error of sediment yield became the main source of system error of the soil erosion assessment by SEM. These results suggest that the uncertainty of runoff and sediment event was an important descriptor to improve the interpretation of ecological function of soil erosion. The logistic regression and SEM form a new analysis framework to explore the interaction between ecological structure and function of soil erosion. This framework could enhance the understanding of erosion processes, and be beneficial to managing the restoration vegetation and utilizing the available water and soil resources in semiarid environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract With the proliferation of woody plant species in much of the world's grasslands, human has manipulated landscape fire to return their forage provisioning service. Yet other ecosystem services (e.g., carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation, erosion control) in the post-managed areas compared to those previously available in the shrub-encroached area are largely unknown, including trade-offs between ecosystem services. Using data from previous publications, we quantitatively synthesized the sustainability of fire as shrub management practice, expressed as its efficacy to control shrubs and its capacity to maintain different ecosystem services. A simple indicator (δ), defined as the ratio of an observed ecological attribute between area experiencing shrub management and untreated control, was used to quantify the changes. Our results showed that fire could be an effective strategy to control shrubs and to increase forage provisioning service (δ herbaceous biomass = 1.39). However, there are possible trade-offs with other ecosystem services (e.g., erosion control, nutrient cycling) when a 54% increase in bare soil cover (δ bare soil = 1.54) and ~74% loss of biological soil crusts cover (δ biological crust = 0.26) were found. Because increasing forage provisioning at the cost of other ecosystem services might not be sustainable, management should focus on strategies to minimize such trade-offs, which may include but not limited to rotational grazing, adjustment in stocking rate, or supplementary external inputs (e.g., fertilizer). Unless those measures are employed, there is possible emergence of a novel crash (i.e., vegetation- and resource-poor scabland) resulting from a combination of soil erosion and high vulnerability of burnt landscape to exotic species invasion. Graphical abstract Unlabelled Image Highlights • Fire managed to reduce shrub cover and density. • Forage provisioning service in shrub-encroached lands recovered following fire. • Yet fire could jeopardize other ecosystem services (e.g., erosion control). • Subsequent management is the key to minimize trade-offs between ecosystem services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Improved understanding the effects of urban planning in guiding urban growth is conducive to the establishment of orderly spatial control systems. Few findings emphasized and systematic interpreted on the effects directly caused by urban planning. Thus, the effects of urban planning and its detailed urban functional planning, as well as different planning combinations were studied in this paper, using Shenzhen as an example. The results show that: 1) During the study period of 2000–2010, urban planning has had a conspicuous controlling effect on urban growth of the Special Economic Zone (SEZ). However, disordered growth has occurred outside the SEZ. 2) Urban planning plays a not particularly significant role in guiding urban renewal and development. The influence of residential planning on residential renewal is not significant. Commercial renewal is positively correlated with traffic accessibility and the distance from subway stations. Industrial renewal only has a significant positive correlation with industrial planning. 3) The planning combinations have played a significant positive guiding role in land development. The renewal probability of residential land equipped with rail planning is increased 19.22 times compared by itself. Highlights • Urban planning has had a conspicuous controlling effect on development of the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) during studying period. • Disordered growth has occurred outside the SEZ, in which 267.28 km2 of developed area was not included in urban planning. • Both residential and commercial planning have not played significant role in guiding urban renewal. • Industrial renewal has a positive correlation with industrial planning. • The renewal probability of residential land equipped with rail planning is increased 19.22 times compared by itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The maintenance of soil health in agro-ecosystems is essential for sustaining agricultural productivity. Through its positive impacts on various soil physical and biological processes, cover cropping can be an important component of sustainable agricultural production systems. However, the practice of cover cropping can be complex, and possible trade-offs between the benefits and side effects of cover crops have not been examined. To evaluate these benefits and potential trade-offs, we quantitatively synthesized different ecosystem services provided by cover crops (e.g., erosion control, water quality regulation, soil moisture retention, accumulation of soil organic matter and microbial biomass, greenhouse gas (GHG) emission, weed and pest control, as well as yield of the subsequent cash crop) using data from previous publications. We used a simple indicator (δ), defined as the ratio of an observed variable (i.e., ecosystem service) under cover crop and under fallow condition, to evaluate the impacts of cover crops on a given ecosystem service. Our results showed that cover crops provided beneficial ecosystem services in most cases, except for an increase in GHG emission (δ CO2 = 1.46 ± 0.47 and δ N2 O = 1.49 ± 1.22; x ¯ ± SD) and in pest (nematode) incidence (δ nematode abundance = 1.29 ± 1.61). It is also important to highlight that, in some cases, tillage could offset the extent of ecosystem service benefits provided by cover crops. Based on this synthesis, we argue that cover crops should be incorporated into modern agricultural practices because of the many environmental benefits they offer, particularly the maintenance of soil and ecosystem health. More importantly, there was generally an increase in cash crop yield with cover cropping (δ yield = 1.15 ± 0.75), likely due to improvement in various soil processes. Despite its benefits, the complexity of cover crop management should not be overlooked, and site-specific factors such as climate, soil type, cover crop species and tillage practices must be considered in order to optimize the benefits of cover cropping. In addition to crop yield, detailed economic analyses are needed to calculate the direct (e.g., reduction in the amount of chemical fertilizer) and indirect monetary benefits (e.g., the improvement of soil quality) of cover crops. Such a comprehensive analysis could serve as incentive for producers to integrate cover crops into their management practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flow-sediment relationships provide insights into the erosion and transport of materials within catchments. Investigating the flow-sediment relationships across multiple timescales can reveal trends related to the effects of natural and human-caused changes to catchments. This study chose fourteen main catchments in the Loess Plateau of China, which are the major sediment sources of Yellow River, to extract the temporal patterns of flow-sediment relationships during the 1950s–2014 period. The study revealed quantifiable effects of land use/cover changes (LUCC) on the variability of flow-sediment relationships. The LUCC induced by the soil and water conservation measures (SWCMs) during 1970–1999 and vegetation restoration campaign since 2000 resulted in significant reductions of annual streamflow, sediment yield and sediment concentration. The mean daily sediment concentration under different flow conditions also decreased greatly. The flow-sediment relationships revealed time dependence over different stages and time scales. Before 2000, the annual and monthly flow-sediment relationships could be generally characterized by the linear functions, and the power-law sediment rating curve was able to describe the daily flow-sediment relationship. As vegetation restoration campaign took effect, the flow-sediment relationship became much weaker, which could not be described by a clear relationship. This suggests that the variability of flow-sediment relationships over the entire period was mainly regulated by the vegetation restoration campaign. In addition, the sediment concentration exhibited a linear decreasing relationship with the area under land use/cover treatment. In this way, the study has brought out the roles of ecological restoration measures in controlling the temporal variability of flow-sediment relationships at the catchment scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fu I et al. i [[7]] propose a "landscape pattern - ecosystem service - sustainable development" framework to describe China's landscape-scale ecological restoration and its impact on landscape patterns, ecological processes, ecosystem services for human well-being, sustainable livelihoods and socioeconomic development. Coupled human and natural systems (CHANSs) are integrated systems in which people interact with natural components, which can provide theoretical insights for sustainable development in the Anthropocene. The recent theoretical frameworks provide conceptual maps for rich CHANSs research, as well as the ability to respond to the issues raised by the theories and provide scientific support for sustainable development. [Extracted from the article]

Drylands are important carbon pools and are highly vulnerable to climate change, particularly in the context of increasing aridity. However, there has been limited research on the effects of aridification on soil total carbon including soil organic carbon and soil inorganic carbon, which hinders comprehensive understanding and projection of soil carbon dynamics in drylands. To determine the response of soil total carbon to aridification, and to understand how aridification drives soil total carbon variation along the aridity gradient through different ecosystem attributes, we measured soil organic carbon, inorganic carbon and total carbon across a ~4000 km aridity gradient in the drylands of northern China. Distribution patterns of organic carbon, inorganic carbon, and total carbon at different sites along the aridity gradient were analyzed. Results showed that soil organic carbon and inorganic carbon had a complementary relationship, that is, an increase in soil inorganic carbon positively compensated for the decrease in organic carbon in semiarid to hyperarid regions. Soil total carbon exhibited a nonlinear change with increasing aridity, and the effect of aridity on total carbon shifted from negative to positive at an aridity level of 0.71. In less arid regions, aridification leads to a decrease in total carbon, mainly through a decrease in organic carbon, whereas in more arid regions, aridification promotes an increase in inorganic carbon and thus an increase in total carbon. Our study highlights the importance of soil inorganic carbon to total carbon and the different effects of aridity on soil carbon pools in drylands. Soil total carbon needs to be considered when developing measures to conserve the terrestrial carbon sink. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is an urgent task to advance Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on different scales in the world. We propose a systems approach to combat this issue, namely 'classification–coordination–collaboration'. This approach allows SDGs to realize key breakthroughs over the short-term while achieving sweeping progress over the long run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can planners integrate multiple planning processes with conflicting spatial boundaries from various administrative departments? This question presents one of the key obstacles in China's current spatial planning practices and has aroused controversy among planners from diverse disciplinary backgrounds. Focusing on the differences in spatial scale between economic and social development planning, land use planning and urban master planning, this study explores an integration of multiple planning approaches at different spatial scales based on a landscape functional zone (LFZ) analysis for Hebi City, a resource-based city in China. The landscape has been segregated into cultivated landscapes, ecological landscapes and urban landscapes, with rigid and conditional restriction levels for either dominant landscapes or coherent landscapes. In the result, the landscape was zoned into 11 classifications based on the 22 restriction and suitability indicators. Rigidly restricted cultivated landscapes accounted for 45.37% of the total area, and conditionally restricted ecological landscapes ranked second with 12.52% of the total area. With regard to the context-dependent planning debate of land sharing/land sparing, the LFZ is able to support land-use policy making at the landscape scale. To conclude, the LFZ could be an innovative solution to the planning conflicts because it clarified the spatial difference of land use in the zones and limited the conflicts of multiple planning boundaries to a few local multifunctional landscape patches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water is a limiting factor and significant driving force for ecosystem processes in arid and semi-arid areas. Knowledge of plant water uptake pattern is indispensable for understanding soil–plant interactions and species coexistence. The ‘Grain for Green’ project that started in 1999 in the Loess Plateau of China has led to large scale vegetation change. However, little is known about the water uptake patterns of the main plant species that inhabit in this region. In this study, the seasonal variations in water uptake patterns of three representative plant species, Stipa bungeana , Artemisia gmelinii and Vitex negundo , that are widely distributed in the semi-arid area of the Loess Plateau, were identified by using dual stable isotopes of δ 2 H and δ 18 O in plant and soil water coupled with a Bayesian mixing model MixSIAR. The soil water at the 0–120 cm depth contributed 79.54 ± 6.05% and 79.94 ± 8.81% of the total water uptake of S. bungeana and A. gmelinii , respectively, in the growing season. The 0–40 cm soil contributed the most water in July (74.20 ± 15.20%), and the largest proportion of water (33.10 ± 15.20%) was derived from 120–300 cm soils in August for A. gmelinii . However, V. negundo obtained water predominantly from surface soil horizons (0–40 cm) and then switched to deep soil layers (120–300 cm) as the season progressed. This suggested that V. negundo has a greater degree of ecological plasticity as it could explore water sources from deeper soils as the water stress increased. This capacity can mainly be attributed to its functionally dimorphic root system . V. negundo may have a competitive advantage when encountering short-term drought. The ecological plasticity of plant water use needs to be considered in plant species selection and ecological management and restoration of the arid and semi-arid ecosystems in the Loess Plateau. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's Loess Plateau is both the largest and deepest loess deposit in the world, and it has long been one of the most severely eroded areas on Earth. Since the 1970s, numerous soil- and water-conservation practices have been implemented: terracing, planting of vegetation, natural vegetation rehabilitation, and check-dam construction. With the implementation of the Grain-for-Green Project in 1999, the Loess Plateau has become the most successful ecological restoration zone in China. However, these large-scale restoration measures and drought have significantly reduced both runoff and sediment from the Loess Plateau. This situation has both advantages and disadvantages for the lower Yellow River. Some local soil erosion has been successfully controlled, but the whole regional ecosystem remains very fragile. Therefore, it is necessary to balance each ecosystem service, for example, by determining the region's vegetation capacity and its spatial distribution for the sustainable development of the socioecological system of the Loess Plateau. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Revegetation has been conducted extensively to restore degraded ecosystems, thereby accelerating water consumption and affecting water availability for other human demands. Examining evapotranspiration (ET) can guide regional management to promote revegetation sustainability and address the contradiction in water demand. We characterised ET variation on China's Loess Plateau from 2003 to 2013, after the 'Grain for Green' revegetation programme implementation. Annual ET significantly increased, with an average trend of 4.87 mm yr−2; the highest increasing trends were in the southern part of the plateau. Combining zero-order correlation and partial correlation, we found that climate and crop production were the key factors influencing ET, while revegetation also had significant effects. We also explored how multiple influencing factors affected ET through partial least-squares path modelling. Revegetation and socioeconomic development were found to impose indirect effects on ET by promoting rural household income and altering agricultural production. The specified linkages and regulating pathways among revegetation and human needs including socioeconomic development and agricultural production should be considered in solving the conflicts between the ecosystem and human water use in water-limited regions. [Display omitted] • Revegetation intensified water demand contradiction between ecosystem and humans. • A realistic representation of how multiple factors affect ET is provided. • Socioeconomic factors affect pathways from revegetation and crop production to ET. • Lifting farmers' income and altering cropping structure help to alleviate water stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world is composed of various river basins. Within a specific river basin, water and sediment dynamics, and the relationship between them, can be assessed to reflect the basin's functions and services. Due to its changing nature, understanding and balancing the relationship between water and sediment is a global concern and is crucial for the sustainable management of river basins, especially for the Yellow River (YR), which is one of the most sediment-laden rivers in the world. Here, we used the past 60 years of runoff and sediment load observations to investigate the middle reach of the YR, i.e., the Loess Plateau (LP), the source of nearly 90% of the sediment load of the river. We found that a sharp (58%) reduction of sediment after 1979 was mainly (59%) caused by a water yield decrease. Engineering and vegetation measures have induced land surface modifications, which are responsible for 76% of the water reduction. These measures have been implemented as part of a coordinated set of soil and water conservation, and sediment control polices. We propose the cessation of such construction and the maintenance of a sustainable (i.e., minimal water consumption) vegetated ecosystem on the LP for soil conservation, and the establishment of an integrated basin-wide ecosystem and land use management regime for sustainable water use and sediment regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humans and water are closely connected in large river basins and form social-ecological systems (SESs). However, cross-scale effect in SESs make it difficult to identify the key forces driving human-water connections at the community scale when ignoring the landscape context. Focusing on the incongruous human-water relationships in the lower reaches of the Yellow River, we built local resident perception-based networks linking the agricultural subsystem, environmental subsystem, and cultural subsystem by distributing farmer household questionnaires and extracted 13 indicators from 7 kinds of network metrics to indicate human-water connections. We applied analysis of variance (ANOVA), random forest (RF) and multilevel linear model (MLM) methods to identify the driving forces of perception-based human-water connections among 20 factors at both the community and landscape scales. The results showed that the perception-based network indicators were mainly directly influenced by community-level driving factors, especially the accessibility of information, such as the frequency of going out , the frequency of accessing the Yellow River channel , and the information source for the national policy on the Yellow River. The influences of community-level driving factors on network indicators were affected by landscape-level driving factors, e.g., the nighttime light , population density , gross domestic product and proportion of artificial land , thus indicating indirect influences from the landscape context. These analyses and findings can enrich the methods by which social, ecological and hydrological elements are structurally linked in sociohydrologic research and highlight the cross-scale effect of the landscape context on human-water systems at the community level. • We built a perception-based network to quantify human-water connections. • We quantified 20 potential driving factors at both the community and landscape scales. • We applied a multilevel linear model to identify indirect driving forces across scales. • The network indicators were mainly directly influenced by community-level factors. • The influence of community-level factors was affected by landscape-level factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the quantification and valuation of ecosystem services have been studied for a long time, few studies have specifically focused on the quantification of tradeoffs between ecosystem services and tradeoff hotspots. Based on previous studies of ecosystem service assessment, we proposed a feasible method to analyze the tradeoffs between ecosystem services, including determination of their relationship, quantification of tradeoffs, and identification of tradeoff hotspots. Potential influencing factors were then further analyzed. The Yanhe Basin in the Loess Plateau was selected as an example to demonstrate the application process. Firstly, the amounts of net primary production (NPP) and water yield (WY) in 2000 and 2008 were estimated by using biophysical models. Secondly, correlation analysis was used to indicate the tradeoffs between NPP and WY. Thirdly, tradeoff index ( TI) was established to quantify the extent of tradeoffs between NPP and WY, and the average value of TI is 24.4 g/(mm·m) for the Yanhe Basin between 2000 and 2008. Finally, the tradeoff hotspots were identified. The results indicated that the area of lowest tradeoff index concentrated in the middle part of the Yanhe Basin and marginal areas of the southern basin. Map overlapping was used for preliminary analysis to seek potential influencing factors, and the results showed that shrub was the best suited for growing in the Yanhe Basin, but also was a potential influencing factor for formulation of the tradeoff hotspots. The concept of tradeoff index could also be used to quantify the degree of synergy between different ecosystem services. The method to identify the tradeoff hotspots could help us to narrow the scope of study area for further research on the relationship among ecosystem services and concentrate on the potential factors for formation of tradeoff between ecosystem services, enhance the capacity to maintain the sustainability of ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sedimentological connectivity is an important issue in soil erosion and sediment transport. Landscape patterns, in combination with the rainfall regime, are known to shape such sedimentological connectivity. The quantification of sedimentological connectivity provides a link between sediment delivery and landscape pattern. There are two categories of connectivity: structural connectivity, which describes the physical coupling of landscape units, and functional connectivity, which delineates the linkage among landscape elements maintained by material transport. To quantify sedimentological connectivity, both the physical coupling of, and material transfer between, the various landscape components need to be assessed. This study quantifies the sedimentological connectivity of a headwater catchment in the Loess Plateau of China using the soil erosion and sediment delivery model (WATEM/SEDEM). Based on the model, two indicators of connectivity were developed: the area of sedimentologically effective catchment area (SEA) that contributes sediment to the sinks, and the minimum sediment output of locations on the flow path that link sources and sinks. This approach effectively represents the annual status of catchment-scale sedimentological connectivity and, furthermore, the simple structure and readily available input data make it highly practicable. However, for larger river systems in which sediment transport between sources and sinks occur over longer time scales and larger spatial scales, we suggest different techniques for quantifying the sediment flux and parameters delineating the physical coupling of landscape units. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding and quantifying the impacts of land use/cover change and climate variability on hydrological responses are important to the design of water resources and land use management strategies for adaptation to climate change, especially in water-limited areas. The elasticity method was used to detect the responses of streamflow and runoff coefficient to various driving factors in 15 main catchments of the Loess Plateau, China between 1961 and 2009. The elasticity of streamflow ( Q ) and runoff coefficient ( R c ) to precipitation ( P ), potential evapotranspiration ( E 0 ), and catchment characteristics (represented by the parameter m in Fu's equation) were derived based on the Budyko hypothesis. There were two critical values of m = 2 and E 0 / P = 1 for the elasticity of Q and R c . The hydrological responses were mainly affected by catchment characteristics in water-limited regions ( E 0 / P > 1), and in humid areas ( E 0 / P < 1), climate conditions played a more important role for cases of m > 2 whereas catchment characteristics had a greater impact for cases of m < 2. The annual Q and R c in 14 of the 15 catchments significantly decreased with average reduction of 0.87 mm yr − 1 and 0.18% yr − 1 , respectively. The mean elasticities of Q to P , E 0 and m were 2.66, − 1.66 and − 3.17, respectively. The contributions of land use/cover change and P reduction to decreased Q were 64.75% and 41.55%, respectively, while those to decreased R c were 75.68% and 32.06%, respectively. In contrast, the decreased E 0 resulted in 6.30% and 7.73% increase of Q and R c , respectively. The contribution of land use/cover changes was significantly and positively correlated with the increase in the percentage of the soil and water conservation measures area ( p < 0.05). The R c significantly and linearly decreased with the vegetation coverage ( p < 0.01). Moreover, the R c linearly decreased with the percentage of measures area in all catchments (eight of them were statistically significant with p < 0.05). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil erosion is a critical environmental problem of the Loess Plateau, China. As an important project for soil and water conservation in the semi-arid environment, the Grain-for-Green extensively transformed a wide range of farmland into vegetated land after the 1980s. Yet, the effects of vegetation restoration on soil erosion reduction are not well understood. In this study, we monitored runoff and sediment yield at sites restored with six typical restoration vegetation types including shrubs ( Armeniaca sibirica , Spiraea pubescens and Artemisia coparia ), grasses ( Andropogon ), and shrub–grass-compounds ( Andropogon and A. coparia ) in the Loess Plateau. We employed structural equation modelling (SEM) to systematically analyze the relative effects of precipitation and vegetation on soil erosion. The results showed that the runoff and sediment yield at the grasslands were significantly higher than other cover types. The shrub cover had the strongest soil conservation capacity of all restoration vegetation. SEM results showed varying impacts of precipitation (i.e., total amount and erosive rainfall intensity) on runoff and soil erosion under different vegetation types owing to differences in canopy structure and surface litter layer. Our study quantitatively revealed the interactive effects of precipitation and vegetation on runoff and sediment, which may be beneficial to conserving available water and soil resources in the semi-arid environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Great efforts have been made to control soil erosion by restoring plant communities in degraded ecosystems world-wide. However, soil erosion has not been substantially reduced mainly because current restoration strategies lead to large areas of mono-specific vegetation, which are inefficient in reducing soil erosion because of their simple canopy and root structure. Therefore, an advanced understanding of how community functional composition affects soil erosion processes, as well as an improved restoration scheme to reduce soil erosion, is urgently needed., We investigated the effect of community functional composition on soil erosion in restored semi-arid grasslands on the Loess Plateau of China. Community functional composition of 16 restored grasslands was quantified by community-weighted mean ( CWM) and functional diversity ( FD) trait values, which were calculated from nine plant functional traits of thirteen locally dominant plant species. Species richness and evenness were also measured. Soil erosion rates were measured using standard erosion plots. The multimodel inference approach was used to estimate the direction and the relative importance of these biodiversity indices in reducing soil erosion., A robust and strong negative effect of functional divergence ( FDiv) on soil erosion was found. The prevalence of particular trait combinations can also decrease soil erosion. The greatest control over soil erosion was exerted when the community mean root diameter was small and the root tensile strength was great., Synthesis and applications: These findings imply that community functional diversity plays an important role in reducing soil erosion in semi-arid restored grasslands. This means that current restoration strategies can be greatly improved by incorporating community functional diversity into restoration design. We propose a trait-based restoration framework for reducing soil erosion, termed ' SSM' (Screening-Simulating-Maintaining). SSM aims to translate the target of community functional diversity into community assemblages that can be manipulated by practitioners. Based on this framework, a comprehensive procedure, highlighting functional diversity as the primary concern in determining optimal community assemblages, was developed to meet the pressing need for more effective restoration strategies to reduce soil erosion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The water cycle is accelerating in the context of global warming. However, how the multifaceted characteristics of aridity, particularly atmospheric, hydrological, and ecological drying, change and interact with each other are largely unknown. A gap we bridged was discovering the causal relationships underlying the atmosphere-hydrosphere-biosphere nexus from the nonlinear dynamic system perspective based on convergent cross mapping (CCM). Dryland area in China has expanded since 1982, while the vegetation greenness indicated by leaf area index has been increasing during the same period. The results showed that the causality among atmospheric, hydrological, and ecological drying in different subtypes of drylands was different. In arid and semi-arid regions: vegetation changes were mainly driven by soil moisture (SM) and vapor pressure deficit (VPD), and VPD regulated SM. In hyper-arid and dry sub-humid areas: VPD dominated vegetation changes. VPD increases did not contribute to SM loss under the intense water stress in hyper-arid regions, as the soil water supply cannot meet the atmospheric water demand. In dry sub-humid areas, human disturbances have attenuated the dependence of vegetation changes on SM variability. This research pioneers complex nonlinear dynamic analyses on the multifaceted characteristics of ecosystems, which can deepen our understanding of atmosphere-vegetation-soil interactions in drylands and guide the sustainable management of dryland ecosystems in China and elsewhere. Graphical Abstract [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] We proposed a simple and feasible framework for quantitatively assessing the benefits and balance of the consequences of the GFGP. [•] Synergies between regulation services and tradeoffs between provision–regulation services were identified. [•] Arbors exert a relatively strong influence on soil conservation and atmospheric carbon regulation. [•] Shrubs have a stronger inhibiting effect on surface water yield in a long-term evolution. [•] Regional-scale vegetation restoration should mainly aim at woody plants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Multidimensional metrics describe the morphological properties of isolated plants. • Morphology probability mass functions evaluate plant distribution patterns. • High-dimensional metrics represent plant ability to control runoff and erosion. Understanding of the effects of vegetation patches and their distribution on soil erosion is important for ecological restoration in semi-arid environments. In this study, six multidimensional morphology metrics and expectations were applied to analyze the effects of plant morphology and distribution on runoff and sediment in two dominant plant species, Artemisia sacrorum Ledeb (AS) and Spiraea pubescens Turcz (SP), at micro-plots (60 cm × 60 cm plots) and field-plots (3 m × 10 m field-plots) in the Loess Plateau of China. The results indicated that, at micro-plot scale, the morphological heterogeneity of the two isolated shrubs (AS and SP) could be identified by spherical cap surface area of canopy and plant volume, which also lead to the isolated SP to have stronger ability to control runoff and erosion than the isolated AS. At field-plot scale, spherical cap surface area of canopy expectation (32.01 ± 1.99 m2) and plant volume expectation (4.06 ± 0.38 m3) of SP field-plots was significantly larger than those of the AS field-plots (15.85 ± 2.46 m2 and 1.10 ± 0.21 m3 respectively) in the potential contributing runoff area (2 m area form the field outlet). These differences result in SP field-plot to have more effective ability to retain runoff and to trap sediment than AS field-plot. The high-dimensional morphology metrics and expectations could determine the role of plant hydrological functions in controlling runoff and sediment at multiple spatial scales. This knowledge improves our understanding of the roles that plant morphology and distribution have on the runoff and erosion from different vegetated plots, and offers a new route to explaining plant morphology and distribution as controls on soil erosion in water-limited ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Build a novel resilience indicator coupled drought intensity and recovery time. • Quantify resilience by integrating fitted curve under the same recovery time. • Ecosystem resilience to drought increased form arid to sub-humid region. • Grassland have higher resilience and lower resistance than that of forestland. • Ecosystem under higher drought frequencies tended to have greater resilience. Drought is one of the most complex hydrological and climate disasters, causing damage to ecosystem structure and function. Ecosystem resilience is considered a key concept for understanding and describing the response of ecosystems to drought. Recovery time, as an important measure of resilience, has been widely used to assess ecosystem resilience to drought, but there is a deficiency in distinguishing the difference in recovery time under various drought intensities. On the basis of the existing assessment of drought resilience based on recovery time, we defined a new resilience indicator using an exponentially fitted curve to characterize the relationship between drought intensity and the corresponding recovery time, and the resilience was quantified by the curve area. Resistance represents the capacity of ecosystems to remain stable during droughts, and we quantified the resistance indicator by the ratio of the frequency of no vegetation loss during drought to drought frequencies. Our results showed that the ecosystem resilience to drought increased from arid to sub-humid regions in China's dryland, and resistance was the lowest in the semiarid region. There was a trade-off between resilience and resistance: grassland had higher resilience and lower resistance than forestland. Drought memory contributed to the high resilience in the case of high drought frequency. These findings enriched the identification of the resilience of ecosystems to drought and the relationship between resilience and resistance and drought frequency in drylands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 20th Party Congress made a significant proposal: "advance the Beautiful China Initiative and take a holistic and systematic approach to the conservation and improvement of mountains, waters, forests, farmlands, grasslands, and deserts". The establishment of a sustainable national economy and ecological civilization is a major priority for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA). The GBA's current land development and protection situation is briefly summarized in the study, which also analyzes the issues with ecological protection and restoration in terms of whole-factor chain management, cross-regional cooperation, and target patterns. From the viewpoints of the system view, holistic view, synergy view, and the study makes pertinent recommendations. The study's goal is to promote the modernization of the GBA so that people and nature can live harmoniously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To quantify the ecological consequences of recent nationwide restoration efforts in China, spatially explicit information on forest biomass carbon stock changes over the past 20 years is critical. However, long-term biomass tracking at the national scale remains challenging as it requires continuous and high-resolution monitoring. Here, we characterize the changes in the above- and belowground biomass carbon (AGBC and BGBC) of forests in China between 2002 and 2021 at 1 km spatial resolution by integrating multiple types of remote sensing observations with intensive field measurements through regression and machine learning approaches. On average, 8.6 ± 0.6 and 2.2 ± 0.1 PgC were stored in above- and belowground live forests in China. Over the last 20 years, the total forest biomass carbon pool in China has increased at a rate of 114.5 ± 16.3 TgC yr -1 (approximately 1.1 % yr -1). The most pronounced forest biomass carbon stock gains occurred in central to southern China, including the southern Loess Plateau, Qinling mountains, southwestern karsts and southeastern forests. While the combined use of multi-source remote sensing data provides a powerful tool to assess the forest biomass carbon changes, future research is also needed to explore the drivers of the observed woody biomass trends and to evaluate the degree to which biomass gains will translate into biodiverse, healthy ecosystems that are sustainable. Annual forest above- and belowground biomass maps for China are now available at 10.6084/m9.figshare.21931161.v1 (Chen, 2023). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: Root biomass has long been under-represented in biodiversity-ecosystem functioning studies, despite its dominance in biomass in many arid and semi-arid ecosystems. We aimed to explore the multivariate control over root biomass by plant diversity, together with other biotic and abiotic factors and to evaluate the relative importance of these factors. Methods: Above- and below-ground traits of 13 communities and soil properties were measured in semi-arid grasslands on the Loess Plateau, China. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to evaluate the relative importance of the community and soil characteristics, emphasizing the direct and indirect effects of plant diversity on root biomass. Results: Significant indirect effects of plant species richness on root biomass were found, although no direct correlation was detected between them. In the indirect pathways, plant species richness showed a positive effect on soil total nitrogen, but a significant negative influence on soil total carbon. Soil total nitrogen and plant diversity had the largest and smallest total effect respectively on root biomass in the model. Conclusions: Plant species richness was not the strongest determinant of root biomass but had a significant indirect effect, mediated through soil total carbon and nitrogen. This study suggests that greater plant species richness, through a positive influence on soil total nitrogen, may indirectly promote root carbon stock. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Many studies on the effect of vegetation on soil resources have compared the patterns of soil resources in different land environments. Few studies have compared the spatial pattern of soil resources in different secondary succession stages. Although various studies have evaluated the heterogeneous soil resources patterns caused by vegetation, few have provided high-resolution analyses of heterogeneous soil resource patterns on a fine scale, with the exception of trees and shrubs. This study has been performed on four abandoned farms (abandoned for 4, 12, 22, and 50years) to evaluate the dynamic effect of vegetation on soil resource patterns at the scale of herbaceous plants. It was found that dominant species in a vegetation family at a given succession stage will play a primary role in the formation of resource islands. Resource islands developed during vegetative succession and subsequently change the patterns of soil resources. There are different soil resource patch sizes and soil parameter patterns on farms abandoned for different periods. A method was developed for this study called the Integration of Geostatistics, Point pattern analysis and Spatial comparison to provide an effective method to research the effect of vegetation on soil resource patterns at a fine scale. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Poverty reduction and environmental protection are two global tasks for sustainable development. The study perspective has changed over time, from narrowly focusing on poverty reduction to comprehensively strengthening human-welfare. We reviewed key references targeting the theoretical content and practical approach relying on poverty, environment protection and ecosystem services. We discussed the contradicting views on the relationship of poverty and environmental degradation, and then illustrated the study progress of a cutting-age topic-ecosystem services which pave a way to address poverty reduction and environmental protection together. At last, we investigated essential factors that affect the development and environmental protection. Considering the evolution of the concept of poverty, we found that the environment has occupied an increasing proportion in the cognizance of poverty. The relationship between poverty and environmental degradation is regional uniqueness. In practical aspect, projects based on the management and valuation assessment of ecosystem services draw researchers' attention all over the world. The appropriate scale, essential economic incentives, morality, law and social equality are key factors affecting individuals' decisions which directly relate to the sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: As a widely distributed land use type, abandoned farmland has become a research focus due to its complex ecological and hydrological responses. Most recent studies have focussed on the interactions between the ecological and hydrological responses in degradation processes, whilst little research has focussed on the recovery of the ecosystem. Moreover, some in-depth analyses are required to further elucidate their interactive on abandoned farmland. In addition, although runoff generation and soil erosion on abandoned farmland have been investigated, few reports have investigated nutrient transport in runoff and eroded sediments. This study investigated the vegetation and soil composition and carried out a 2year monitoring experiment to monitor the runoff and soil erosion of farmlands abandoned for different lengths of time (4, 12, 22 and 50years) on a mountain slope located in the Loess Plateau of China. It is found that after farmland abandonment, vegetation holds a positive succession. A two-phase mosaic structure forms, and the moss coverage increases on the inter-vascular plant. From 4 to 50years in abandoned farmland, the average accumulated runoff increases from 9698.2ml to 38,605.3ml in a 5×2m runoff plot. Additionally, the average accumulated sediment loss decreases from 2019.5g to 387.7g in a same plot. Furthermore, the wastage of soil organic matter and most nutrients also decreases on slopes after farmland abandonment because the nutrients are mainly lost in the eroded sediments. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]