Search

The theoretical research and practice of sustainable development based on landsenses ecology are carried out through the overall framework mechanism of meliorization and process regulation. This ki...

Urban greenery has positive impacts on the well-being of residents and provides vital ecosystem services. A quantitative evaluation of full-view green coverage at the human scale can guide green space planning and management. We developed a still camera to collect hemisphere-view panoramas (HVPs) to obtain in situ heterogeneous scenes and established a panoramic green cover index (PGCI) model to measure human-scale green coverage. A case study was conducted in Xicheng District, Beijing, to analyze the quantitative relationships of PGCI with the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and land surface temperature (LST) in different land use scenarios. The results show that the HVP is a useful quantization tool: (1) the method adaptively distinguishes the green cover characteristics of the four functional areas, and the PGCI values are ranked as follows: recreational area (29.6) > residential area (19.0) > traffic area (15.9) > commercial area (12.5); (2) PGCI strongly explains NDVI and LST, and for each unit (1%) increase in PGCI, NDVI tends to increase by 0.007, and (3) LST tends to decrease by 0.21 degrees Celsius. This research provides government managers and urban planners with tools to evaluate green coverage in complex urban environments and assistance in optimizing human-scale greenery and microclimate.

Noise pollution is one of the major urban environmental pollutions, and it is increasingly becoming a matter of crucial public concern. Monitoring and predicting environmental noise are of great significance for the prevention and control of noise pollution. With the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT) technology, urban noise monitoring is emerging in the direction of a small interval, long time, and large data amount, which is difficult to model and predict with traditional methods. In this study, an IoT-based noise monitoring system was deployed to acquire the environmental noise data, and a two-layer long short-term memory (LSTM) network was proposed for the prediction of environmental noise under the condition of large data volume. The optimal hyperparameters were selected through testing, and the raw data sets were processed. The urban environmental noise was predicted at time intervals of 1 s, 1 min, 10 min, and 30 min, and their performances were compared with three classic predictive models: random walk (RW), stacked autoencoder (SAE), and support vector machine (SVM). The proposed model outperforms the other three existing classic methods. The time interval of the data set has a close connection with the performance of all models. The results revealed that the LSTM network could reflect changes in noise levels within one day and has good prediction accuracy. Impacts of monitoring point location on prediction results and recommendations for environmental noise management were also discussed in this paper.

In China, urban municipal supervision and management information system (UMSMIS) is a new platform to implement all-time and all-round urban environmental management. The accumulated data in the operation of UMSMIS contain varieties of knowledge about the urban environment and human life. With the development of electronic navigation map, points of interest (POIs) are treated as an important data resource for the urban study. POIs contain not only location information but also social-economic information. They may be associated with the generation of urban environmental problems. To identify the spatial pattern of environmental problems and further explore the relationships between environmental problems and POIs, this study analyzed the spatial pattern and composition of points of environmental problems (POEPs) at three levels, including the global level, local level and road level, in Dongcheng District, Beijing, China. Then the study explored the relationships between POEPs and POIs at the three levels. The results showed that the spatial distribution of POEPs was statistically significant clustered (p

The complicated relationship between urban scenes and public perceptions has long been a concern in many disciplines. Previous studies have lacked human-oriented technical paths and high-throughput datasets to quantify physical and psychological perceptions in different land-use scenarios. This paper adopts a novel transfer learning approach to quantify the six types of landsense indices (LSIs) as psychological perception metrics and employs panoptic segmentation to parameterize the view index (VI) and the number of foreground instances (NFIs) as physical perception measures. Then, a quantitative analysis is conducted in Beijing’s six Ring Road areas, and the connections between people’s physical and psychological perceptions of heterogeneous land use are explored. The landsense maps can depict the distribution of LSIs and facilitate the understanding of complex perceptions distributed at a large scale. The regression model shows that natural landscapes (trees, grasses, and mountains) in the Beijing built-up area exhibit an overall positive performance. Moreover, for several block-level land uses, industrial scenery is related to overall negative psychological feelings. Parks and green spaces are positively related to psychological perceptions, because of the greater exposure opportunities to natural landscapes for residents. The framework in this research has potential in assisting urban planning and land-use management, and it enriches the datasets with extensive information, thereby improving the psychological perceptions of urban scenes from residents’ perspectives. The novel approaches in this paper take a step forward in quantifying and understanding the public perceptions of urban landscapes.

Waterlogging is becoming a severe and universal phenomenon in China, so the construction of sponge cities is proposed to address urban water problems abiding by the overall principles of ecological priority and low-impact development. The ecological security pattern (ESP) is an effective way to balance rapid urbanization and ecological protection. Taking Zhengzhou as an example, this study, performed a geographic information system (GIS) modeling, which constructed a targeted ESP for the construction of a sponge city based on comprehensive analysis of multi-factor water ecological sensitivity. Compared to previous studies of ESP, some improvements were made in the identification method of ecological sources, corridors, and nodes. By analyzing the ESP, the study divided the whole city into different construction zone. Through different protection and planning strategies for these areas, the integration and connectivity of the ecological sources can be improved, and thus, urban ecological security can be improved. The ESP for sponge city is a relatively more systematic and scientific way to guide the construction of a sponge city, and can be used for reference to other cities in the process of sponge city construction.

The environmental Internet of Things (IoT) can be applied in real-time monitoring of environmental factors by using automation and information technology to achieve science-based environmental mana...

Street greenery is a component of urban green infrastructure. By forming foundational green corridors in urban ecological systems, street greenery provides vital ecological, social, and cultural functions, and benefits the wellbeing of citizens. However, because of the difficulty of quantifying people’s visual perceptions, the impact of street-visible greenery on housing prices has not been fully studied. Using Beijing, which has a mature real estate market, as an example, this study evaluated 22,331 transactions in 2014 in 2370 private housing estates. We selected 25 variables that were classified into three categories—location, housing, and neighbourhood characteristics—and introduced an index called the horizontal green view index (HGVI) into a hedonic pricing model to measure the value of the visual perception of street greenery in neighbouring residential developments. The results show that (1) Beijing’s homebuyers would like to reside in residential units with a higher HGVI; (2) Beijing’s homebuyers favour larger lakes; and (3) Beijing’s housing prices were impacted by the spatial development patterns of the city centre and multiple business centres. We used computer vision to quantify the street-visible greenery and estimated the economic benefits that the neighbouring visible greenery would have on residential developments in Beijing. This study provides a scientific basis and reference for policy makers and city planners in road greening, and a tool for formulating street greening policy, studying housing price characteristics, and evaluating real estate values.

Traditional methods of urban planning mainly focus on urban land, population size and transport priorities, and fail to consider environmental quality and welfare. To build a suitable urban form for future residents, urban eco-planners should consider the various data and technologies available, especially a resident’s sensitivity in their planning. Rational and scientific planning needs comprehensive analysis of urban ecosystems, including both natural and human factors. The new concept and theory, ‘landsenses’, can help urban planners to integrate human sensitivity into their blueprint. Excellent eco-planning should include all forms of human senses, that is sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. Based on the framework of landsenses ecology, we tentatively made a landsenses ecological planning for the Xianghe Segment of China’s Grand Canal (XSCGC), in which we addressed the importance and challenges to incorporate a resident’s sensory information into the ecological planning process, to promote...

Soundscape describes a sound or combination of sounds that forms or arises from an immersive environment, which plays an important role in the composition of the urban landscape. The traditional urban landscape planning and design always put weighs on the visual sense, and integrating the soundscape and visual landscape will elevate human subjective sense of the objective environment, which will promote a new view for traditional urban landscape design. In this paper, we analyzed the types and characters of acoustic environment in the Xianghe Segment of China’s Grand Canal (XSCGC) based on noise monitoring data with EIoT, and proposed a model for traffic noise control to improve the acoustic environment of sensitive area such as university campus and habitations in the study area. Finally, we produced a soundscape plan based on landsenses ecology to comprehensively upgrade the quality of the soundscape in the XSCGC.

This paper proposes the concepts and associated contents of landsenses ecology and mix-marching data, and explains the roles of the meliorization model and Internet of Things (IoT) in the landsenses ecology-based land-use planning, construction and management. It also analyses the importance and application approaches of mix-marching data. In the current situation of rapid social-economic, scientific, and technological development, there exists an urgent need for us to further study landsenses ecology and its applications.

Water quality is one of the most serious problems of environment and national sustainable development strategy now facing China. After hard work over the last several decades, urban-sewage treatment in China is now relatively well developed. It now affords mainly higher levels of sewage collection and treatment, as well as pollution-load control. The characteristic rapid urbanization now occurring in China is still increasing and developing dramatically, and involves large numbers of people. However, in towns, sewage treatment infrastructure is inadequate, and a high percentage of the sewage generated there is not effectively collected and treated. The sewage and pollution load of such towns have become the most important reason for environmental water problems in China. To understand the priorities of sewage treatment in such towns, and their spatial distribution in China, we conducted two nationwide investigations of water use and sewage discharge in towns. Based on the integrated analytic hierarchy pro...

The Napahai Wetland is a typical plateau wetland in the Hengduan Mountain Area, China, with characteristic geography and abundant biodiversity. Serious ecosystem degradation in the Napahai Wetland has occurred from natural factors and human disturbances, and urgent protection measures must be taken to protect this important wetland. We assessed the value of ecosystem services in the Napahai Wetland using the market pricing method, the replacement cost method, the shadow engineering method, the cost expenditure method, and the contingent valuation method. Our study encompassed the valuation and analysis of services of product supply, climate regulation, water supply, flood control, environmental purification, nutrient conservation, habitat, tourism, and scientific research. Our estimates indicated a total monetary value, for all ecosystem services in the Napahai Wetland, of 237.96 million Yuan (2008: comparable price), which translates into a unit area estimate of 76 thousand Yuan/ha. We estimated that the...

The county-governed administrative area considered in this study is a unit with wide distributed basic geographical characteristics in China. In addition, the area is the basic organizer and manager of the monitoring and evaluation (ME (2) questionnaire survey approach – invite some scholars, consultants and citizens to evaluate the feasibility and the accessibility of the data sources of the 22 preset M&E indicators and (3) pr...

As cyanobacteria blooms occur in many types of inland water, routine monitoring that is fast and accurate is important for environment and drinking water protection. Compared to field investigations, satellite remote sensing is an efficient and effective method for monitoring cyanobacteria blooms. However, conventional remote sensing monitoring methods are labor intensive and time consuming, especially when processing long-term images. In this study, we embedded related processing procedures in Google Earth Engine, developed an operational cyanobacteria bloom monitoring workflow. Using this workflow, we measured the spatiotemporal patterns of cyanobacteria blooms in China’s Taihu Lake from 2000 to 2018. The results show that cyanobacteria bloom patterns in Taihu Lake have significant spatial and temporal differentiation: the interannual coverage of cyanobacteria blooms had two peaks, and the condition was moderate before 2006, peaked in 2007, declined rapidly after 2008, remained moderate and stable until 2015, and then reached another peak around 2017; bays and northwest lake areas had heavier cyanobacteria blooms than open lake areas; most cyanobacteria blooms primarily occurred in April, worsened in July and August, then improved after October. Our analysis of the relationship between cyanobacteria bloom characteristics and environmental driving factors indicates that: from both monthly and interannual perspectives, meteorological factors are positively correlated with cyanobacteria bloom characteristics, but as for nutrient loadings, they are only positively correlated with cyanobacteria bloom characteristics from an interannual perspective. We believe reducing total phosphorous, together with restoring macrophyte ecosystem, would be the necessary long-term management strategies for Taihu Lake. Our workflow provides an automatic and rapid approach for the long-term monitoring of cyanobacteria blooms, which can improve the automation and efficiency of routine environmental management of Taihu Lake and may be applied to other similar inland waters.

Yunnan Province has many and unique natural resources and rich biodiversity. Natural reserves (NRs) play a significant role in maintaining and protecting the biodiversity and stability of ecosystems in this area. Yunnan is a typically eco-environmentally fragile area; thus positive effects of NRs are important in the construction of an ecological safety barrier for southwest China. Evaluation of the effectiveness of management of NRs has been implemented to improve management outcomes. This study provides indices to evaluate problems and management effectiveness for 60 NRs, covering national and provincial NRs of Yunnan Province. These indicate that management of NRs suffers from inadequate funding, poor infrastructure and equipment, low community participation, and a lack of government support. The indices had relatively low scores for infrastructure and equipment, ecotourism, monitoring, and evaluation, but high scores for planning and design and ownership. There were significant positive correlations b...

China's rapid urbanization and its success in developing the Internet of Things (IoT) will decide its future development direction. The construction of sustainable cities is crucial to China because China has such a large population. The Xiamen Long-term Urban Ecosystem Observation and Research Station (Xiamen LUEORS) was started in 2006, together with the research related to the Environmental Internet of Things (EIoT) for Xiamen LUEORS. This paper explains the purpose, general framework, and main features of EIoT, and outlines the results of performing EIoT experiments in some areas, including a town village', a peculiar phenomenon of China's urbanization. It also discusses the development trends of IoT and proposes the concept of ZeroSpace Interconnection of Things (ZeroIoT, or ZeroSIT).

Rapid urbanisation and developments in urban ecosystem research have increased attention on the spatial and temporal rules of urban land expansion, changes to the urban interior spatial structure and improvements to urban ecosystem functioning. There is an urgent need for a scientific method which uses remote sensing (RS), global positioning system (GPS), geographical information system (GIS) and ground surveys to quickly, constantly and accurately monitor urban spatial patterns, ecological processes and environmental changes. This study proposes a method to establish urban plots for a Long-term Ecosystem Research Station. The five procedures to determine the 24 plots were (1) analysis of city geography, (2) expert screening, (3) index analysis of urban land use in the plot, (4) coupled analysis of plot characteristics and overall urban development and (5) verifying that plot distribution was suitable for long-term monitoring of the spatial pattern of urban expansion.

Higher urbanization rates cause new urban environmental problems and changing trends. New technologies also provide novel techniques for environmental management. This paper establishes a framework for an Environmental Internet of Things (EIoT) and describes key technologies, including Wireless Sensor Network (WSN), network techniques, Geographic Information System (GIS), WebGIS, and distributed database techniques. The framework of the EIoT from bottom to top includes environmental sensors, real-time network monitoring system, environmental databases, environmental information platform, and environmental management system. We discuss the construction of our EIoT and show how it provides real-time monitoring at the residential level of environmental factors such as water, soil, atmosphere, noise, and wind. The EIoT can also realize online environmental simulation and management and is currently being extended to the city, regional, and national levels. The EIoT can improve understanding of the urban environment and help to provide advanced technological solutions for increasingly serious environmental problems.

The Internet of Things (IoT) has many potential applications in the field of environmental monitoring. In this article, some hardware, including noise meters, ZigBee, and GPRS, were assembled and adjusted to get traffic noise data, which would be analyzed and compiled into a database based on the categories and characteristics of the data. Based on traffic noise data from 35 roads of nine green spaces in Xiamen, we used a back propagation neural network to practice net-simulation of noise data from 30 roads, while data from the remaining 5 roads were used as test data. Finally, the trained neural network was used to simulate traffic noise from 100 roads in Xiamen Island. Software systems using VB language and Flex network technology were also developed, and the simulation results were published on the Internet. The success of the method indicates that the Environmental IoT not only enables fast and effective acquisition of environmental data, but also enables accurate simulation and real-time network dist...

Open access to scientific data now is essential to promote the regional and global research, which could provide a comprehensive perspective for better understanding and facilitate better‐informed ...

Improving the understanding of temporal and spatial behaviour of tourists is important for enhancing sustainable management of tourism. In recent years, with the emergence of photo-sharing Internet communities, many photographers have posted their photographs on the Internet and made them freely accessible. Generally attached to these shared photos is information about where and when the photos were taken, providing clues to establish the temporal and spatial distribution of the photographers. In this paper, we described a photography-based approach to analyse Chinese tourists' temporal–spatial behaviour identified from 1308 photos taken in the Old Town of Lijiang. We estimated tourists' temporal variation, length of stay, daily average number of tourists, individual movement traces and tourist hotspots. The results suggest that the photo-based methods have obvious advantages. We believe that this wealth of publicly available data sources with spatio-temporal information will provide a new perspective in ...

A scientific approach to urban planning is required to ensure environmental protection and ecological sustainability. This paper presents a range of urban land-use scenarios and their implications for urban development and economic demand in the Old Town of Lijiang. Using geographic information system (GIS) and questionnaire analysis, three future urban planning scenarios were created based on data and storylines for the Lijiang region. In all scenarios, urban growth arises from population increase due to tourism and economic change. However, the spatial patterns differ due to varying assumptions about urban development processes or purposes. The modelling results are successfully illustrated in the scope of possible land-use scenarios for the future and provide useful input for starting discussions on future urban development planning.

With the development of Lijiang City, many empty spaces have been exploited and the built-up land is becoming increasingly crowded. This has caused degradation of the urban environment. In this paper, we analyse the fractal dimension of built-up land in Lijiang City in an attempt to improve environmental quality. TM image data acquired in 2000 and 2006 were used to derive land-use data through a back-propagation neural network realized using Matlab software. Urban form was quantified with the box-counting method. The fractal dimension of built-up land increased from 1.73 in 2000 to 1.84 in 2006, meaning that the respective amounts of built-up land and green space have become disproportionate over time. To obtain a better balance between green areas and built-up land, the area–radius relationship method and the Smeed model were used to find the optimum range, within which increasing green areas will bring greater ecological benefits. This range was within a 2000-m radius of the entrance to the Old Town of ...

Rapid economic development has led to urban sprawl and threatens river systems. In this paper, we used geographic information system (GIS) techniques to examine the effects of urbanisation on the water resources of the Yanggong River watershed in Lijiang City, and analysed the temporal changes in river systems and their impacts on watershed ecosystem functions. The total length of the river systems in the Yanggong River watershed decreased from 786.9 km in 1995 to 674.2 km in 2009 and is predicted to continue to decrease by 35.5 km in the next 11 years according to various data sources. The decrease in river system density started in the Old Town of Lijiang and gradually spread to the surrounding areas. Our analysis shows that urbanisation is failing to take into account the impacts on river systems and their functions, which could cause a reduction in the size of the river systems and degradation of watershed ecosystem functions in the Yanggong River watershed of Lijiang City. It is suggested that protec...

Street greenery, an important urban landscape component, is closely related to people&rsquo, s physical and mental health. This study employs the green view index (GVI) as a quantitative indicator to evaluate visual greenery from a pedestrian&rsquo, s perspective and uses an image segmentation method to calculate the quantity of visual greenery from Tencent street view pictures. This article aims to quantify street greenery in the area within the sixth ring road in Beijing, analyse the relations between road parameters and the GVI, and compare the visual greenery of different road types. The authors find that (1) the average GVI value in the study area is low, with low-value clusters inside the third ring road and high-value clusters outside, (2) wider minor roads tend to have higher GVI values than motorways, major roads and provincial roads, and (3) longer roads, except expressways, tend to have higher GVI values. This case study demonstrates that the GVI can effectively represent the quantity of visual greenery along roads. The authors&rsquo, methods can be employed to compare street-level visual greenery among different areas or road types and to support urban green space planning and management.

A new model was developed to predict forestland demand of China during the years of 2010–2050 in terms of the concept of forest ecosystem services. On the basis of the relationship between forest ecosystem services and classified forest management, we hypothesized that the ecological-forest provides ecological services, whereas commercial-forest supplies wood and timber production, and the influences of the growth of population, social-economic development target, forest management methods and the technology changes on forest resources were also taken into account. The prediction reveals that the demand of total forestland of China will be 244.8, 261.2 and 362.2 million ha by the year 2010, 2020 and 2050, respectively. The results demonstrated that China will be confronted with a shortage of forest resources, especially with lack of ecological-oriented forests, in the future. It is suggested that sustainable management of forest resources must be reinforced and more attention should be drown no enhancing the service function of forest ecosystem.

Remote sensing was used to assess the impacts of tourism development on temporal land-cover changes in the Lugu Lake region, home to the Mosuo people. The ecological and economic significance of the Lugu Lake area derives from the existence of a unique matriarchal system and the success of tourism development. Temporal land-cover changes between 1990 and 2005 were evaluated using digital interpretation of multitemporal Landsat TM images. Pairwise comparison methods were used to quantify changes in land-cover during three periods: 1990 to 1995, 1995 to 2001, and 2001 to 2005. The areas surveyed in each period were 10,226 ha, 7,727 ha and 9,344 ha, respectively. The annual rate of land-cover change for farmland, forest, grassland and wetland were 2.86%, 5.85%, 3.95%, 6.28%, respectively. Farmland and wetland have decreased, whereas forest, grassland and residential areas have increased. The land-cover changes could be explained by the success of tourism development and ecosystem management in Lugu Lake regi...

It is important and necessary for sustainable management of regional ecosystems to establish a framework for dynamic monitoring of ecosystem change (DMEC). For sustainable ecosystem management of the Lugu Lake region, the key issues addressed in DMEC are monitoring range, principles, intervals, site and indices, which can be used to create a framework for long-term DMEC for a region. This paper puts forward a new method to combine remote sensing with field investigations to achieve accurate and appropriate changes in a regional ecosystem. Because regional ecosystem change is closely related to local inhabitants, the authors also consider the participation of these people. Finally, the use of DMEC to provide a framework for decision-making and sustainable management of a regional ecosystem is described.

By using the remote sensing images of Lugu Lake scenery district in 1990 and 2005, the information about variation of forestland for 15 years has been extracted. Based on the technique of spatial data mining (SDM), both the universal geometrical characteristics of forestland variation patches and the knowledge of spatial association rules have been mined by adapting statistical analysis method and cluster relation analysis method. On the basis of calculating and statistic analyzing the minimum, maximum, mean, variance, and mode of the objective geometric characteristic eigen values, the spatial distributed discipline and the association rule of variation patches have been analyzed, as well as the inner disciplines in forestland variation process; thus to provide a foundation for the study of driving forces of land use variation and the management of forest ecosystem in Lugu Lake scenery district.

Water is one of the most important components of agricultural ecosystem, and also a source of food security, which plays an essential role in ensuring sustainable food resources for a growing population. In this study, the policy relevancy of virtual water was addressed, with food production, alternative trend of import, and product condition analyzed. The results showed that an average of 10.2 x 10(9) m3 water and 27.7 x 10(6) hm2 land was transferred by imported wheat, while an average of 0.3 x 10(9) m3 water and 1.6 x 10(6) hm2 land was transferred by imported maize. The sum of virtual water equivalent was 10.5 x 10(9) m3. It's of significance to alleviate the pressure of water stress in agriculture and arable land, help to resolve water predication of food production by food imports, and compensate water endowment.

The Minshan and Qionglai mountains, the major distribution range of the Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca), was struck by the Wenchuan earthquake. In this study, we evaluated the impact of the earthquake and subsequent geo-disasters on the Giant Panda and its habitat using Wenchuan county (where the epicenter was located) as a case study. Habitat characteristics before and after the earthquake were analyzed based on TM images taken pre and post-earthquake and previous research in this region. Results showed that about 252.0 km2 of panda habitat was lost in Wenchuan County after the earthquake, which accounted for 13.9% of the total habitat in this county. Regions with high earthquake intensity, low elevation, steep slope, and near river had a higher proportion of habitat loss than in other regions. In addition to habitat loss, the earthquake and its resulting geo-disasters also caused habitat fragmentation. After the earthquake, the number of habitat patches increased by a factor of 2 and mean patch size was only 28.3% of pre-earthquake conditions. Habitat restoration and corridor reparation along Road 303 are necessary for facilitating panda's migration between isolated patches. It is necessary to take some measures including relocation of residents and earthquake compensation to decrease the impact of reconstruction on the Giant Panda and its habitat.