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Rapid urbanization has drawn some aquatic environments into the urban texture from the outskirts of cities, and the composition and distribution of plant species in urban wetlands along the urban gradient have changed. Understanding the drivers of these changes will help in the conservation and utilization of urban wetlands. This study investigated the differences in plant diversity and associated influencing factors in three wetlands, Xixi wetland, Tongjian Lake wetland, and Qingshan Lake wetland, which are located in a core area, fringe area, and suburban area of Hangzhou City, respectively. The results showed that a total of 104 families, 254 genera, and 336 species of plants were recorded in the Xixi wetland; 179 species, 150 genera, and 74 families were found in the Qingshan Lake wetland; and 112 species, 96 genera, and 57 families were collected in the Tongjian Lake wetland. The main plant species and flora distribution of the three urban wetlands showed similarities. Indigenous spontaneous vegetation was highest in the Xixi wetland, while cultivated plant species were most abundant in the Tongjian Lake wetland. The introduction of cultivated plants decreased the distance attenuation effect of plant communities, which led to a certain degree of plant diversity convergence among the three wetlands. Eight endangered plants were preserved in the Xixi wetland by planting them in suitable habitats. Ellenberg’s indicator values showed that the proportion of heliophilous plants was higher in the Qingshan Lake wetland, while the proportion of thermophilous plants and nitrogen-loving plants in the Tongjian Lake wetland was higher than in the other two wetlands. The importance of artificial interference factors affecting the differences in plant diversity was significantly higher than that of natural environmental factors in urban wetlands. The preservation of spontaneous plants and the introduction of cultivated plants had an importance of 25.73% and 25.38%, respectively. These were the main factors influencing the plant diversity of urban wetlands. The management mode that did not interfere with spontaneous vegetation and confined maintenance to cultivated plants in the Xixi wetland was beneficial for improving wetland plant diversity. Scientific plant reintroduction can also improve wetland plant diversity.

Abstract Urban development continues to face the dilemma of spatial inequality of public facilities, particularly educational and medical facilities. Identifying inequalities in various types of public facilities and their driving mechanisms is crucial in reducing social inequality. However, information on this topic is limited. This study took 10 typical cities in China as cases. We used the methods of the Gini coefficient and hedonic price model as bases in evaluating the equality of nine types of education and medical facilities, focusing on the differences between urban and rural areas. Moreover, we further analyzed the driving factors of facility equality. Results showed that equality of public facilities in urban areas was significantly higher than that in rural areas. Primary schools, middle schools, and health service centers were relatively equal, and kindergartens and pharmacies were unequal only in rural areas. However, the equality of facilities with large-size or commercial attributes was not optimistic. Furthermore, there remained a significant gap among counties (or districts), which was mainly driven by population, economy, and building density in the form of logarithm and logarithmic linear models. Our research contributes to an in-depth understanding of the inequality of public facilities and further supports decision-making to improve social equality.

Rural development has the potential to improve the well-being of villagers, but it may also impact local plant diversity. In addition, plant diversity differs across various subareas of rural development efforts in scenic areas, reflecting variations along the center-periphery gradient. To explore the relationship between economic development, plant diversity, and villagers’ well-being in villages within scenic areas during the rural development process, this study analyzed plant species data and satellite remote sensing images between 1984 and 2021, focusing on changes in land-use types in the Hangzhou West Lake Scenic Area and their impacts on plant diversity in the central, middle, and peripheral scenic areas. The results indicated that the area of rural construction land decreased, compared to 1984, while other land use types showed varying degrees of increase. Specifically, part of the forest in the peripheral scenic area was transformed into tea fields, resulting in an observable increase in the overall area of tea field. Moreover, the number of plant species decreased along the center-periphery gradient of the scenic spot. The greatest differences in the number of plant species and increases in the number of invasive plants were found in the peripheral scenic area, reflecting the greater impact of rural development in this region. Additionally, the number of rare and endangered plant species increased the most in the central scenic area in recent years, which was related to the use of urban green space to protect such plants. Ellenberg’s ecological indicator values (EIVs) indicated an increase in the number of species preferring shady locations and acidic soils in the scenic areas. The changes in land use and production and business activity strategies in the villages of the West Lake Scenic Area improved the villagers’ well-being, and the resulting factors such as the introduction of non-indigenous plants and environmental filtering changed local plant diversity. Therefore, the administrators should carefully consider the trade-off between conserving biodiversity and enhancing the well-being of the local villagers. The findings offer evidence of how different economic development models over time can influence rural biodiversity and villagers’ well-being, providing a reference for sustainable development in scenic spot villages.

Riverside greenways are complex artificial–natural composite ecosystems that occupy significant linear open spaces in urban areas. Healthy riverside greenways promote public health and improve urban environmental quality. This study developed an evaluation system with four criteria layers and 31 indicators, using a comprehensive method that combines the analytical hierarchy process (AHP), entropy weight method (EWM), and technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) to assess the ecological health of the Shangtang River greenway in Hangzhou, China. Additionally, structural equation modeling analyzed key factors influencing riverside greenway health and their pathways. Redundancy analysis (RDA) was used to explore how design and non–design factors affect the ecological health of riverside greenways. The results showed health values for different sections of the riverside greenway ranging from 0.16 to 0.69. The use of ecological design techniques was the main factor causing significant variations in health values across sampling plots. Specifically, ecological revetments, the slope of terrain at water entry, and ecological conservation measures positively impacted the ecological health of the riverside greenway, while non–native invasive plants and building density had negative effects. Non–design factors, such as physical states, also play an equally important role in the ecological health of urban riverside greenways. Effectively assessing the ecological health of these greenways is essential for developing management strategies. This study presents a novel framework for evaluating the ecological health of urban riverside greenways by quantifying indicators related to the regional environment, physical conditions, management practices, and design techniques. It quantitatively analyzes how landscape design techniques contribute to ecological health and serves as an empirical tool for improving urban waterfront environments and advancing riverside greenway construction and management.

Landscape ecological risk reflects the impact of human activities or natural hazards on landscape patterns, functions, and processes in a region. The scientific assessment of its evolutionary trends can play an essential role in maintaining and improving regional human wellbeing. This study focused on the Fuchunjiang River Basin in the suburbs of Hangzhou, a large city in China with a high degree of landscape heterogeneity and rapid economic growth. Based on land use data from 1990 to 2020, an ecological risk assessment model and geodetector tools were combined to study the spatiotemporal variation characteristics and influencing factors of landscape ecological risk in the basin. The results showed the following: (1) from 1990 to 2020, the landscape pattern of various land use types showed a general trend of an increasing degree of agglomeration and decreasing loss index; (2) the spatial distribution pattern of landscape ecological risk was “high in the northwest and low in the southeast.” From basin to township scales, landscape ecological risk showed a decreasing trend on long time scales, although the changes were relatively drastic in short time periods; (3) GDP, human interference, area of urban and rural residential land, area of arable land transferred in, and area of arable land transferred out were the dominant influencing factors of landscape ecological risk; (4) the coupling between landscape ecological risk and GDP in 2020 exhibited an inverted “U” shaped relationship, indicating that the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) may have the same applicability in the ecological risk management; (5) according to the main functions of different risk agglomerations, targeted ecological risk management strategies were proposed. In short, this study carried out the landscape ecological risk assessment at the township scale for the first time, quantitatively analyzed the relationship between economic development and ecological risk, and proposed targeted risk prevention strategies, which are instructive for other basin areas that are experiencing rapid urbanization in the world.

Abstract Understanding the spatial distribution characteristics and formation mechanism of urban facilities (city functional components) constitutes the basis of urban layout optimization. Currently, research on the overall distribution of the various types of city functional components is lacking. In this study, by applying the gradient analysis method common in ecology, we considered 13 types of city functional components (80,214 individuals in total) in large, medium and small Chinese cities (9 cities in total) to carry out quantitative analysis of the distribution of components along urban–rural gradients through density distribution curves. The results indicated that: (1) a higher density of city functional components near the city centre revealed an obvious aggregated distribution; (2) the spatial distribution dynamics of city functional components were related to the city size, providing a reference for the rational distribution of components in cities of different sizes; (3) the distribution of city functional components was affected by their ecosystem services. This study offers a new perspective for the application of ecological methods in the examination of the distribution of city functional components.

The composition of urban forests (UFs) exhibits homogenization among cities compared with rural forests (RFs) among different climate zones. However, the degree of homogenization in subtropical UFs and its difference from RFs remain unclear. In this study, we examined tree species composition and diversity in UFs in 19 cities in China’s subtropical zone with precipitation ranging from 458 to 1852 mm and compared them with RFs. We found that (1) the species composition similarity, Jaccard index (J~0.27), between UFs was significantly higher than that (J~0.15) of RFs, indicating biotic homogenization; (2) tree species richness, Simpson, Shannon–Wiener, and Pielou index of UFs converged along the precipitation gradient; (3) the similarity of tree composition between UFs increased as precipitation of the cities were more similar; (4) the UFs in the 19 cities contained a total of 932 tree species, among which the nonnative species were more prevalent than the native species, and the top 37 species with high frequency appeared in 80% of the cities; and (5) Salix babylonica, Ginkgo biloba, Platycladus orientalis, Juniperus chinensis, and other tree species were suitable for planting in UFs in subtropical zones, regardless of humidity. The findings contribute to the understanding of urban forest development and provide insights for implementing greening policies aimed at providing additional ecosystem services.

Iron loading has been reported to be a common stress in the development of cells, and this might be related to bone loss and osteoporosis. Astragaloside IV (ASI‐IV), a pure compound derived from Radix Astragali, has been reported to exhibit cardioprotective, anti‐inflammatory, antioxidant, antiasthmatic and anticancer effects. The aim of this study was to investigate whether ASI‐IV could reverse iron loading‐induced inhibition of cell viability, proliferation, pluripotency and osteogenesis and promote adipogenesis of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs). Ferric ammonium citrate (FAC) was used to stimulate iron loading conditions. ASI‐IV was observed to ameliorate the FAC‐induced reduction of cell viability, proliferation, pluripotency and osteogenesis of BMSCs. In addition, ASI‐IV could block the increased adipogenesis of BMSCs after FAC treatment. We intraperitoneally injected mice with 250 mg·kg−1 iron dextran, with or without ASI‐IV (40 mg·kg−1), for 4 weeks. ASI‐IV inhibited the iron loading‐induced bone loss of these mice. Furthermore, ASI‐IV played a protective role in iron loading‐induced abnormal differentiation of BMSCs by regulating iron homeostasis and metabolism. In summary, our study suggesteds that ASI‐IV might have potentials for development into a novel therapeutic strategy for the treatment of iron loading‐induced abnormal differentiation of BMSCs and osteoporosis.

Urban wetlands play an important role in the urban ecological environment. Due to their special habitat characteristics, urban wetlands can serve as micro refuges for endangered plants. This study takes Isoetes sinensis as a case study to explore the feasibility of introducing endangered plants into urban wetlands to identify potential habitats through field studies, eco-physiological experiments, and urban wetland surveys in the central district of Hangzhou, China. The study demonstrates that I. sinensis can survive in habitats with a water depth less than 15 cm, a water velocity less than 0.04 m/s, and an ammonium-nitrogen content in water less than 0.5 mg/L. On this basis, 1.75% of the wetland (145.38 ha) in the central district in Hangzhou can serve as wetland habitats for I. sinensis. Moreover, other potential habitats for I. sinensis will be available following further improvement of environmental conditions in urban wetlands. Planting I. sinensis in urban wetlands is an effective step to assist in the protection of this species. However, it should be noted that there are some uncertainties related to successful reintroducing I. sinensis into urban wetlands, such as the appearance that like weeds, the poor resistance to pesticides and the changes of urban wetland environment.

With the continuous promotion of the rural revitalisation strategy, the planning and organisation of individual villages can hardly adapt to the current development needs of rural areas, causing synergistic development among villages to become a critical goal in promoting the sustainable development of rural areas. Reconstructing the development space of traditional village clusters can reduce their development gaps and promote coordinated development. Understanding the connections between traditional village units can support adaptive reconstructions of village spatial network structures and offer scientific and reasonable development planning strategies. Based on geographical and economic data publicly released in 2022, this study takes the traditional villages of the Fuchun River Basin in China as an example and uses village development quality and the shortest traffic time crawled in real time by Python to construct a spatial connection model of traditional villages in the Fuchun River Basin. The study also uses social network analysis to analyse the characteristics of the spatial network structure. The results show that (1) the intensity of spatial connections in these traditional villages is severely polarised and imbalanced. (2) The spatial network structure is in the development stage; few villages act as intermediaries, and the networks have poor connectivity and integrity. (3) The connection density within cohesive subgroups varies considerably. No complete transmission path exists among the subgroups, and the path of collaborative development is imperfect. These findings can optimise and reconstruct the selected spatial network of traditional villages to integrate and upgrade their development. The framework system also holds reference significance for other similar rural traditional villages.

An urban agglomeration is a highly developed spatial area formed by integrated cities. While previous studies have analyzed green space allocation at the provincial and city scales, there is insufficient information on green space allocation in urban agglomerations. For this research, a database of green spaces in eight urban agglomerations (133 cities) in China from 2002 to 2019 was constructed to better understand the equity of green space distribution among land resources. A green space equity index (GEI) was established based on the Theil index and combined with GeoDetector to analyze the differences in urban agglomeration green spaces. The main conclusions are as follows: The sum of the GEI of China’s urban agglomerations has increased significantly, rising from 3.74 in 2002 to 6.34 in 2019. The GEI value for each of the eight urban agglomerations was kept under 0.01. Polarized development has occurred within urban agglomeration cities, and the allocation of green space in megacities is relatively weak, especially in the more economically developed Yangtze River Delta and Guanzhong urban agglomerations. The average temperature, humidity, and precipitation have dominant influences in determining the GEI values. This paper provides a new perspective on the management and allocation of urban agglomeration green spaces.

Urban wetlands constitute an integral part of urban ecosystems. Unsurprisingly, wetland landscapes affect the frequency with which urban residents visit wetland areas. Objectively evaluating the beauty of landscapes and exploring the factors that influence their perceived beauty can inform urban wetland landscape design. This study selects three wetlands located in the core, fringe, and suburban areas of Hangzhou, respectively: Xixi wetland, Tongjian Lake wetland, and Qingshan Lake wetland. To explore the impact of ecological design techniques on the scenic beauty of wetlands, the selected wetlands were used to conduct field investigations. In addition, the wetland landscapes were submitted to public evaluations using scenic beauty estimation (SBE). At the same time, the factors affecting the beauty of the wetland landscape were quantified using the semantic differential (SD) method, and the impact paths of ecological design and plant diversity on scenic beauty were analyzed through the structural equation model (SEM). The results indicated that plant richness, cultural expression, color harmony, and coordination of landscape elements have both a significant and positive impact on the scenic beauty of urban wetlands. By way of contrast, habitat diversity had a significant yet negative impact. Across the three urban wetlands, ecological design techniques were found to significantly improve plant diversity and scenic beauty. This study demonstrated that the application of well-thought-out ecological design methods was conducive to the integration of environmental protection, landscape aesthetics, and the sustainable utilization of urban wetlands in the rapid urbanization process, providing a reference for urban wetland landscape conservation, planning, and design.

Understanding the research lineage of rural landscape ecosystem services (RLESs) is of importance for improving rural landscapes and developing sustainable ecosystem services. However, there is currently no literature analysis on the scientific quantification and visualization of RLESs. In this study, 4524 articles related to RLESs from 1990 to 2021 were analyzed using the bibliometric method and ISI Web of Science database. The results show that RLES research hotspots have gradually shifted from the early keywords of “vegetation”, “land use change”, “agriculture”, “rural gradients” and “models” to the emerging “cultural ecosystem services”, “rural tourism”, “landscape preferences” and “policy guidance”. Scholars from developed and developing countries place different emphases on research hotspots in terms of research content, scale and methodology due to differences in their research backgrounds and other aspects. In addition, five categories of research fronts were obtained through literature co-citation analysis. Through burst word detection analysis, combined with basic research and research hotspots and frontier analysis, we concluded that future RLES research will focus on four areas: (1) the relationship and collaboration between and management of biodiversity and ecosystem services; (2) the landscape value of RLESs; (3) land-use changes and ecosystem service values; and (4) research methods for innovative RLESs. Our findings may contribute to better in-depth RLES research by providing a theoretical reference and practical help for future related research.

Rising demand for ruminant meat and dairy products in developing nations drives increasing GHG and ammonia emissions from livestock. Authors show here that only long-term adoption of global best-practice in sustainable intensification buffered by a short-term coping strategy of green-source trading can offer a way forward.

In the context of rapid urbanization, protecting landscape connectivity has become an effective measure to mitigate habitat fragmentation and curb biodiversity decline. However, in the current research on simulating optimization processes, the ecological constraints often set are dispersed, isolated, and fixed. They fail to form a comprehensive protective spatial framework and struggle to align with the multifaceted objectives of future development. This study, taking the main urban area of Hangzhou, China as a case study and employing small mammals as indicator species, utilizes the PLUS model to predict the potential threats to landscape connectivity of biological habitats posed by artificial surface expansion from 2020 to 2035. It constructs a coupled mechanism that integrates multi-level ecological security patterns (ESPs) and multi-scenario simulation for landscape connectivity, successfully demonstrating the effectiveness of this mechanism in future landscape connectivity preservation. The results indicate that under the scenarios of business-as-usual (BAU), priority given to urban development (PUD), and priority given to ecological protection (PEP), the overall level of landscape connectivity in the main urban area of Hangzhou is projected to decrease by 18.42%, 7.02%, and 4.39% respectively from 2020 to 2035. The reduction in core area is estimated to be 9.08%, 7.85%, and 6.34%, respectively, while highly important patches are expected to decrease by 12.91%, 7.51%, and 5.86%, respectively. Both PEP and PUD scenarios effectively mitigate the degree of landscape connectivity disruption. This study provides valuable insights for the future optimization of landscape connectivity and contributes to biodiversity conservation efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]